Knightfall
by Miracle Man
Summary: The Jedi Cahal Meyrick comes to terms with the destruction of the Jedi Order.
1. Revelations Part I

As light began to seep through the darkness Cahal began to wonder, finding an uneasy anxiety rising from deep within. In his right hand he held his lightsaber, but it had been years since he'd felt the urge to ignite it for the sake of a little lightness. He felt the familiarity of his room in the Jedi Temple under his bare feet as he walked through the darkness, the Force guiding him to the next room.

A dim wave of light broke through the darkness from the heavy curtains covering the window. His bare feet made no sound as he crossed the floor. The anxiety only rose within him as he reached out and grabbed the curtain. The Force somehow felt slick, and sort of sickening, and it felt worse the closer he got to the window And when he threw back the heavy curtain the light flooded into his room, banishing the darkness. But as he stood frozen, looking out the window onto the Coruscant skyline, a small part of him deep within wished he had done anything but.

Fire, smoke, and the orange glow of the light trapped down in the haze covered everything he could see, from the Jedi Temple ground far below his feet to the horizon. _ How could this have happened?_ Was all he could hear as he tried to process what he saw in front of him. And then he realised what the sickness was that coated the Force and made him feel clammy and twisted. Death. More than he had ever known, more than he could have ever imagined.

And it slid over him like oil. He stumbled against the wall beside the window, still unable to look away. _The core of the capital is covered with it. I don't even know if..._ He had no way of finishing the thought, not that it would have mattered if he did. He felt it just before it happened. The door to his room banged open, two men bursting through. He turned his head and saw the pair, the man on the left tall and young, the man on the right short and well past his middle years. _ This isn't right. _ Both of them held ignited lightsabers. _ No, this is wrong. _But that didn't stop what was to happen next, and he didn't need the Force to tell him what would.

He tried to prepare himself. Tried, and failed. But that isn't to say that he wasn't ready for the two to charge him together. _ The younger man will charge forward first. If a quick blow from the blindside doesn't deal with him, it should give enough time to deal with the other._

He pushed himself away from the wall and ignited his lightsaber, blue plasma sprouting three feet from his hand. At the same time the young man jumped to evade a chair, but before it smashed to pieces by the door he was almost knocked out by a music box in the shape of a globe that came in from the side shattering against his head. And then his lightsaber crashed into the older man's, their eyes met, and all Cahal saw was hate; a deep, burning hate. _ This one is tough, experienced._

Cahal allowed the Force to flow through him, and in the Force his perception of the universe changed as only one with knowledge and experience of the Force can see. Looking through the Force he saw the two men for what they were, what they truly were in the Force. The younger man was a storm, dark smoldering clouds and forked lightening that he knew would grow fiercer when he stepped into the fight once again. And the older man he stood toe to toe with was a flame, a fire burning with the intensity of a deep well of oil; he was an uncontrollable burning rage fed from whatever was buried deep within.

All in less than a moment had he analyzed the two of them, just as he was sure the older man had analyzed him. _ Here we go. _ The Force brought the warning and he gave himself over to the training of his Masters. His personal mentor Mace Windu, the Battlemaster Cin Drallig, and his good friend turned youngest Master in the history of the Order; Agen Kolar.

There are a few things one should know when it comes to the various arts of Jedi swordplay.

First and foremost is the matter of Ataro. The third form of the Jedi saber skills is, in it's elite form, completely personified by Yoda. It is characterized by Force-enhanced acrobatics to not only increase the user's speed, but also give the user a constant, almost immovable center of gravity. It dispenses with teaching defensive maneuvers as a form instead opting for teaching incredibly precise and fast strikes, thus requiring it's user to either master Ataro's aerial maneuvers or fall back on Soresu; the basic building blocks taught to all Jedi Padawans as children.

Though the Jedi library does speak of the original creators of Ataro, that style is no longer taught to any of the Jedi. The modern form adapted by Yoda having completely revolutionized the form, causing the old form that was practiced quite widely during the ancient wars with the Sith having fallen into the history files.

Then, completely at odds with the fast paced, flowing grace of Ataro is the far more recently crafted forth lightsaber form; Djem-so. The two share one single commonality, that is their tendency toward the offense, but from there they are miles apart.

Where Ataro is all fast-paced acrobatics Djem-so parries the strike and counterattacks, throwing the opponent onto the back foot. When taken to the extreme the Force user will seek to bully and overwhelm their opponent as fast as possible. However, it also requires it's user to constantly stay on the front foot.

And then of course, there is Juyo. The seventh lightsaber form, built entirely around an emotional outburst powering mind-blowing assault lastly; Mace Windu is the only true master, having tweaked it into his own unique style; Vaapad. Vaapad takes it's name from a many-limbed tentacled creature from a small, rarely traversed corner of the galaxy. It is not uncommon for a Vaapad to grow between nine and fourteen tentacles, though the most ever recorded has been twenty-three. That being said, it is never known just how many tentacles a Vaapad has until the creature that has crossed it's path has managed to kill it.

A Vaapad is by nature a very territorial creature, and it's limbs move faster than anything else known, complicating matters for even the most experienced Jedi. As such, the lightsaber technique is characterized by a calm advance while the user's weapon moves faster than most can achieve in a mastered form of Ataro; the weapon flicking from place to place with the sound of a whip-crack.

_He's fast. _ The older man's green blade flashed and struck against Cahal's blue. _ And precise. _ Both users of Ataro and quickly falling into synchrony as the Force-increased speed quickly had them blurring into a blue-green haze flashing across the room. Cahal, having been trained by the creator and only living master of Vaapad held a slight advantage as the two of them flew around each other, more than once the distinctive whip-crack saving his life.

But Cahal Meyrick was no Master, of anything. He wasn't that experienced, his swordplay had very little refinement to it, and his failure to master Vaapad only pressured his failure in the more complex maneuvers of Ataro. He knew it was to Master Drallig's disappointment that he constantly fell back into Soresu when pushed onto the back foot instead of flying around his opponent in search for the best position to attack from.

_The other one is getting up. _ His heart started to beat faster. _ Need to finish this one quickly. _ Green and blue flashed and darted around each other in the corner of the room, leaving scorch marks across the floor and through the window. Then Cahal saw it. _ Oh crap! _ And he missed a step.

He was too close, he knew it, held his nerve and fell backwards, swinging his lightsaber across in the same motion. The green lightsaber whipped above him as he turned his head, so close he felt the heat across his ear as he flipped over backwards with the Force, landing on his knees. _One down. _ He looked up to see the older man drop his lightsaber, moving his hands to a long black scar that ran across him before he collapses, his insides spilling out onto the floor like the contents of an open bag.

The moment the older man hit the floor Cahal felt a shift in the Force. He needn't have looked, but he turned his head all the same to see the younger man. Through the Force he saw the storm build into a rage, whipping around itself like a tornado as lightening flashed outward. And for a second time he felt death wash over him.

He felt slow, sluggish, and drained as he watched the storm darken and grow. _What is this?_ Then a fork of lightening flashed out at him. He gathered what strength he had and raised his right hand, deflecting the lightening to the side where it crashed into the wall. _Who is he?_ His right forearm was numb, his mind had slowed to a crawl and the Force started to slip away from him. But the younger man didn't let up, charging forward and slashing at him with his lightsaber.

_He's fast._ Cahal fell back, and back, and back. _But not as fast as the older man._ He kept up easily enough, but that wasn't really the problem. No, this one was strong. _Too strong._ Cahal was completely unable to match his strength as he slammed his dark blue blade down into his own, bending his arms and wrists with every blow. _I can't keep this up._

The man slammed into him so hard he was pushed back a couple of steps, and then the next thing he knew he was outside the Temple, hands empty and falling amongst the debris of the window and wall he was blown out of. _Master Windu wouldn't be too pleased, how many times have you been in situations like this one?_ He turned in the air, pressed his feet against the outside wall and pushed himself off, propelling himself with the Force he shot away from the main tower of the Jedi Temple.

A moment later he was sliding along the floor of a hallway, having crashed through the window of one of the four corner towers. _Too easy._ Cahal pushed himself to his feet, breathing hard and steadying himself as he tried to overcome the overwhelming aura of death engulfing everything.

_Take it slow, time makes it easier. Just time._ Leaning against the wall for a moment, trying to catch his breath he raised his hand to his ear, feeling where his Padawan braid had been burnt to a crisp end after two inches by the green plasma, he found himself smiling. _Not like I need it anymore anyway._ He pushed himself off the wall and walked to the hole he made as he crashed his way inside.

Standing at the edge he looked up and saw the man standing where he left the central tower, looking down at him. _ He's waiting for something. _ Then his gaze drifted further up the tower, and all thought completely escaped him. His eyes never found the Chamber of the Jedi Council. Instead they came up more than a few dozen feet short of the mark, the tower ending abruptly in a maze of jagged, ruined columns and walls standing up like fingers cradling the fading haze of a smoke plume stretching up into the atmosphere and clouding everything in and around the Jedi Temple.

Cahal, in an effort to fight off the absolute crushing despair, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, searching for the famed Jedi calm, the first thing taught to all students upon their arrival at the Jedi Temple.

It took him longer than it normally would have, but these were far from normal circumstances. Slowly he managed to sink into the Force, and in that calmness, he saw the future. Only glimpses of the immediate, but more than enough.

He looked down to the Temple grounds, and saw a massing of troops guarding huge artillery pieces. More than a dozen, all with barrels large enough for a man to fit in without fear of claustrophobia. And every barrel was moving in the direction of the tower he stood in. _ Well, only one way that can possibly end._

So Cahal did what he had been trained to do; he let the Force guide him. After so many years it was now far simpler than listening to and adhering to the will of the Force; now it was almost as if he quite literally gave himself to the Force, and the Force took him where it needed him to be. And so it wasn't so much as he moved with the Force as it was the Force moved _him_.

_Here we go._ Dozens of gigantic booms signaled the artillery opening up. Never two in the same instant, each loud enough to shake the Temple even without their devastating payload. The entire tower shook, and trembled, and broke apart. _ It's okay, you got this. You got this. _ The Force took him through the tower as it crumbled all around him, leading him through the destruction, every footstep safe only for the moment in which the Force took him through it.

But it was not enough. There were too many obstacles, too many explosions, too much debris, and nowhere near enough chances for safety at any turn. Cahal knew this, he saw it coming. _They never called you crazy for nothing._ The Force took him to where he needed to be, and then there was only pain as the tower crumpled and collapsed all around him. And he screamed.

The darkness came as quickly as the pain and lasted just as long. The silence came after, and was almost calming in and of itself. But it was not the end. The Force hadn't lied to him, nor had it deserted him. _Yep, no question about it. That one hurt._

As Cahal fought his way back from the edge of the darkness his hands slid through the loose debris to his torso, running across to his left side where he felt the metal spike running through him. He was on his side, trapped in a small space where some pieces of wall and ceiling had come together to create a sort of brace and slanted ceiling.

_Alright Cahal, first things first. _ His left leg was pinned to the floor at his calf, so firstly he freed himself with a gesture, channeling a minute amount of the Force. _Right, good job. Now we've just gotta... _as he braced himself, and with another scream he slid forward and began slowly pulling himself off of the metal spike.

Already bleeding out as he flopped onto the floor, he gathered the Force and placed a hand on both ends of the wound. Sealing the wounds didn't take more than a trickle of energy, but any lack of concentration could provide some pretty awful results. And the pain was almost laughable compared to what came before.

_Good, well done._ All immediate problems dealt with Cahal finally allowed himself to truly lay back and rest for a minute._ Now you've just gotta dig yourself out, walk through the apocalyptic remains of the Central Planet, get into the depths of the Jedi Temple, somehow get your hands on another lightsaber, and you'll be flying._


	2. Remains

"The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet." - Stephen King

_19 BBY, Month 5, 2300 Hours Primeday – Jedi Temple, Coruscant._

With his heart clenched into a fist he raced over the fallen bodies blanketing the halls of the temple, easily nine out of ten wearing their distinctive white armour. _So paradoxical_. The Force called out to him, led him as turned a corner and hurried down the adjoining hall, never slowing his pace as he deflected a dozen laser bolts on his way through, never paying any mind as he cut down the one or two that survived until he got within reach of them. How strange it was that these soldiers never screamed. _They fall down though. Everything falls eventually_.

This war was a monumentally terrible move. He'd said so from the first, to all who had listened. And yet he could never make a point against Mace Windu when the First Speaker had replied with, "When we're caught between two bad choices, we do only what we can. Nobody can ever ask more." At the time, he was right. _We both were. Face a splintered Republic? Or the destruction of what it means to be Jedi?_ In the end, he, along with the entire Jedi Order, had done what they had always done, done what they were trained to do. They let the Force guide them. _And look where that's gotten us_. He was trying to hold back his anger at what was happening all around him, trying, and starting to fail under the weight of all that had happened these last few years. And then a wall fell away as the hall became a long balcony overlooking the kitchens. _Getting closer_.

The room was giant, one of the largest in the entire Ziggurat Pyramid that was the Jedi Temple. Several long tables spanned the floor, each capable of seating hundreds. Throughout the last decades it had never seated so many as it could, and in the last few years it was never more than half filled at any time, though the same could have been said of the entire Jedi Temple, except for today. Today was the exception. _And the hearts of men will never allow them to forget this day_. As so often happened in recent years, he could not say if the thoughts were his or not.

Today, the tables were all half destroyed and sitting upright on sides or ends or both as the case may be, what was left of the chairs lay all over the place, maybe ten or twelve of them miraculously still in one piece, the kitchen beyond was on fire – he need not see the smoke to know that – and the walls were riddled with black smoke marks and pot-holes from all the various weapons fire available to the intruders. Like the rest of the Jedi Temple, even here, this day, everywhere he looked was scattered with piles of debris hot from the battle and the bodies fallen, never to rise again. But, unlike so many of the other rooms, these long hours after the assault began, the giant room around him was still very much alive with the so familiar shouts and explosions that accompanied the heat and struggle of war.

In the center of the room were twelve – _Soon to be eleven_ – of his brethren standing back to back in a circle, deflecting and dodging hundreds of laser shots that came at them from all directions, all across the expansive room. He needed not even look around to know it. He'd known long before he'd even began his approach, that the struggle for survival still engulfed this room.

As he moved across the high, third level balcony to take out a small cluster of the white-clad soldiers, he saw out of the corner of his eye a pair of rockets streak through the air toward the web of largely blue plasma in the center of the room. One swung in a sharp curve away from the group as he cut the four flesh machines to pieces, and the two rockets exploded at the same moment. One, blowing apart a machine gun nest huddled around rock and marble by a wall, and the other, halted just short of it's target, slamming into a grenade, the fire from the explosion wrapping around the circle of Jedi and obscuring them from view until it dissipated.

This was when he felt their numbers dwindle one less, and his anger welled up more. Looking down at the scene below him, the group of overwhelmed Jedi, and feeling the gigantic force moving throughout the Temple; a slow, calm, methodical extermination, he knew what needed to be done if he was to ever face that, and live. At his feet among the dead were a dozen assault rifles, a pair of heavy machine guns and an automatic rocket-launcher with still a few shots remaining. Using the only judgement available to him at this point, he used the Force to connect with all of it, and as he became one with all the weaponry, he elevated it over the balcony railing and took aim with it across the room at the clusters of executioners scattered along the opposite wall, and he flung himself out into the room. _We do, only what we can_.

The weapons fire above him covered his drop, but it was the dull-orange glow in his left hand that covered his landing as he took a dozen white armoured killers by surprise. Eradicating them in an orange blur, then allowing the Force to guide him as he leaped across the room, he released all of the not-unfamiliar anger that had built up in him this day. Through the Force he launched tables and body parts, discarded weapons and grenades, and rock and metal from where they lay, while his orange blade sliced white armour – and those who dwelt within – to little more than shreds. _It's so easy, the slightest pressure and they fall apart. It should be harder than this. Should be, but isn't_. And suddenly, thankfully, just when a smile broke onto his face, the struggle – if it could be called that – was over, just like that.

Looking down at the weapon in his hands, at the pile of two he just turned into five, at feeling the smile on his lips, his hands shook. Just for a moment, then the smile was gone. _Close your eyes, quiet your mind. Calm yourself_. He did as the Force instructed, took a breath, and calmed, and felt the anger begin to leave him. _Seek the peace, look up if you must, to know for certain that she is alive_. And so he did. Though the relief had already flooded him before he looked up to see the small, pale face that belonged to his young pupil, Miyuki.

At fifteen standard years, Miyuki was still smaller than most of the common species to which she technically belonged. Not quite five feet tall with a mop of red hair the colour of rusted metal kept short and close to her face, and those too-large blue eyes that filled her head once had a kind of soft rascaliness to them, but no more. She had changed these past few years as much as any Jedi had. _Almost as much as the Order had adjusted to suit it's new role for the new Republic._ _She's not a young girl anymore. Ten years back she would've seen too much even for an experienced Jedi Knight._ Today, those eyes revealed a heartbroken person, bore the hardness of someone who had seen a lot in their life. She carried the blue plasma lightsaber of the Padawans, and at her wrists and throat where her clothes did not cover, blue symbols marked her skin.

He hung his head, almost unable to look upon his compact Padawan, but his eyes only fell upon the remains of everything he had given himself to, everything he had brought her into. _Face the damages of our short-sightedness. The cost of pride and zealotry_. And as his orange-tinted plasma retreated from sight, he couldn't help but let out a small, mirthless laugh. _In the end, arrogance played no part. I certainly didn't see that coming_.

"Master Meyrick." Miyuki said as she approached, flanked by three of the other survivours, all Padawans of varying ages, though none older than she. The other seven hung back, five more Padawans around two Jedi Knights, though even they didn't seem much older this day. _ No Masters though, there are so few of us left_. He could feel only two still alive on Coruscant, the others, with the exception of Yoda, were simply too far away for him to know. "You feel it don't you? The darkness, it's spread. Growing."

"We know who our enemies are. They have stepped forth from the shadows and revealed themselves. That is enough, for now." _What can we do? _ The Force gave him an answer, cryptic as it was. _You know what needs to be done_. His gaze shifted to his pupil, looking into her large old eyes in their too-youthful face and couldn't look away. He did know. He'd seen it. Long ago, he knew he would die this day. _So, what will it be?_

"So we take the fight to them."

"No." Everyone left alive in that room looked at him right then, confused, disillusioned, and waiting for someone to lead them. He could feel it from each of them, but what disconcerted him was that he could see it plain on all of their faces. _ These are no Jedi. None of them are ready, none of them are what they need to be_. "We gather up what remains, and we leave." _Though not all of you will make it_.

"We leave?" One of the Knights asked.

"They attacked us!"

"This is where we live. This is the Jedi Temple."

"Where would we go?

"Master Meyrick, are you insane?"

Miyuki, as she so often did of late, remained silent, staring into his eyes, searching.

_Maybe I am, insanity seems to be infectious these days_. "I'm standing in the middle of the crux of Jedi power and learning, surrounded by the fast falling bodies of my brethren, my brothers and sisters."

"Then why do we leave? We should make them pay for every inch of ground they take, for every life they destroy."

_I'm not one for speeches, that's Mace, or Aayla, or the Troll. Not me_. "We can kill them as they come, as we find them, until we collapse from exhaustion. They will never stop coming. To me, it seems insanity that we should stay."

"So where do we go?"

"The Troll." _Blessed little Miyuki_. She was too clever, and too powerful by far. If they sought to make a long-awaited comeback in a couple of decades time, to even make an attempt at killing Sidious, they needed Cin Drallig.

He nodded. "He is currently moving toward the north-east corner of the temple, rallying what he can." The Troll and his one-time apprentice. He had come from that direction and knew there wasn't many, if any left when he'd made his way here. _I've never felt the emanations from him fluctuate this way. A hard day for even the most calloused of us_.

"And what if that... thing comes and finds us?"

Miyuki spoke for him, but they felt more like his own words going through her. "Then you'll get your wish of dying with the rest of us." The last years felt like a lifetime in their own, he never even questioned their mental connection anymore, it was the way it was, and he would never have it any other way. "Anyone else?"

"Masters Windu, Kolar, Fisto and Tiin were murdered at the outset."

"The shift in the Force?"

He nodded. "Their deaths and the dark consuming it's new warrior." _Skywalker. He was always on the edge. But so was Mace, and Kolar, and myself. And little Miyuki, if not for Windu and Sifo-Dyas, she would have cost me my life as Jedi. Still almost did_. "Shaak Ti is currently distracting him."

"Another fallen Jedi." There was no hint of a question from his pupil. The memories of Dooku and the others like Billaba were still firm in the minds of all Jedi. They weren't the only ones to have fallen to the Dark these last years, but the turn to insanity of a member of the High Jedi Council will always grab the attention, no matter how the Chancellor's grip on the Holo-net tried to hide the truth.

"We need to go, now." He'd made his decision. "You can come with me or go and die on your own. Which will it be?" _This war has changed us all. Some more than others_. He didn't wait for anyone's response. He just turned and made his way toward the next section of the battlezone. He felt Miyuki immediately on his heels, six others only a step behind her, two moved a moment later. He spared no thought for the last two who did not follow. _"Fear will freeze men in place or give them wings. It is the choices we make when it comes to the crunch that reveals a Jedi's true character."_ Always right, was Master Windu. _And now we shall see just what a single man is capable of_.

_Not alone Master Cahal, never alone_. Miyuki loped along beside him, somehow her far shorter legs keeping pace easily. To those flanking them she seemed like a tiny version of her Master. Their heads forward, letting the Force guide them onward. _And what of Serra?_

Cahal needn't have had the Foresight to know. _I wouldn't worry about her. The Troll is still alive, that is all that matters_. The Troll's old apprentice would be alongside her master; that he had found his way to Miyuki was evidence enough of the bond between a master and apprentice. But even if she wasn't, Serra Keto was a quality fighter in her own right.

Yet, knowing all that he does of her, that doesn't lift the weight on his gut as he leads his small band of Jedi through the Temple. He knew what he needed to do when this day came to pass, knew the fate that awaited six of the nine who jogged alongside him. He had seen the faces of the dead. _It didn't alter the fate of Mace though_. His old master had been one of the greatest, and had arguably prepared him well for the days that had come to pass. Windu was always the first to declare that they weren't soldiers, yet he was the one who did the molding. _All one needed to do was look at Billaba to see that_.

Cahal felt an explosion of energy far to the north of them, and right on the back of it the Dark Side, somewhere between applause and a hungry stomach, rumbled and grew. _Shaak Ti is dead_. He felt the change in Miyuki beside him. _She felt it too_. But none of them stopped moving. Instead Cahal turned them to his right, towards the sound of laserfire, and raced into the library.

He flew into the back of a cluster of the white troops, orange blade bursting into life and already whirling in his left hand as he cut them to shreds, announcing his presence to the others that were spread out all across the expansive three floors of the library. Dozens turned their attention on them, immediately raising their weapons. Instinctively Cahal darted one way as Miyuki went the other, leaving the rest of them to set up a defensive line where they stood.

_Four, spread out thin and getting pinned down. Have to be quick._ He swept from aisle to aisle, cutting down the Republic soldiers before they even had a chance to raise their weapons at him. _Going up_.

_I got this_. As Cahal leaped from across the room and pushed himself off a pillar Miyuki charged across beneath him, using the Force as she crunched into one of the Holo-cron walls, busting it apart as she blew through to get at a pinned-down Jedi on the other side.

His weapon was an orange globe around him as Cahal landed, dove, rolled and spun across the second floor, covering the others as they followed him up, a couple even going further on to the uppermost floor. _ Need to wrap this up quickly_. Why, he wasn't too sure exactly, to him it seemed as though the force of dark energy was moving away from Cin Drallig. But he urged himself on all the same, working around the floor so he cut down most of the troops on his way to the stairs.

As he reached the top step he sent out a small pulse of energy that crashed into a holo-cron wall, completely shattering it and releasing a blinding flash of light. Not waiting for the flash to clear he raced on, cutting through the line of white troops that was waiting for him, at the same time feeling two of his brethren's light go out.

_It's not enough. Whatever I do it's not enough!_ He slashed his sudden frustration out as he saw his apprentice fly up over the balcony rail and in a blue blur cut a swath through the troops to his left and saved another young Jedi from imminent death. _ More coming. Oh, I got this_. And just as a group of reinforcements came running through the doors from an outside walkway Cahal threw his anger and frustration at them, a sizable wave of energy that sent them all flying back through the doors, across the walkway to ricochet over the rail before they fell.

The Force told him that the last of them were fleeing the library, already planning on setting up defensive positions. But that was only at two exits, and the library had over ten. _And reinforcements will be a few minutes at least. Time, there is so little left_.

_It does not do well to dwell, Master_. Miyuki walked up to him as the others did, congregating in a loose circle, two less than they should have been, all but one a Padawan. _You've done what you can_.

"No I haven't. Not yet." To the confusion of the others he was facing the wall. But Miyuki knew him, felt all that he was. He was staring _through_ the wall. Not at the shadow that swept through the Temple grounds, nor at Cin Drallig still attempting to rally what he could. _He'll go down to the end that one_.

No, he was looking at the Jedi Council Chamber. It was interesting, feeling Miyuki react to feeling him. _ Only time would have ever told how far she would go_. He looked into her old eyes once more, and he felt her go sad, feeling the conflict raging within him. _ And now I'll never know, one way or the other_.

"Master?" One of the others looked to gain his attention, but at the moment that belonged solely to his apprentice. And she said nothing, as confused as all the others, more so.

_It's not easy you know_. Now was his time, his choice. _ It never was, for me. Jumping this way and that as the moment requires me to. Sometimes it's like I'm fumbling in the dark for something, anything. Jedi principle, sometimes so at odds with who I am_.

"What do you mean?" The suddenness of her words surprised the others enough, never mind the words themselves.

"The future is the product of the present. But we are the product of our experiences, our past. Both abstract in themselves because the only tangible is the now. And yet, it doesn't change the thought that choice is merely an illusion. On the things that matter, truly, deeply to us, is there ever any real choice? And if there is a clear, definite choice, are we then not who we thought we were?"

"Master Drallig is that way! And that's away from the shadow's warrior!" The others were growing frustrated now, but none of that even came close to pushing away the quiet melancholy emanating from his apprentice, her large eyes awash with sadness. _Sweet, little Yuki_. "We have to get to him while we can."

"But I have to go that way." Cahal replied, turning his face back toward the Jedi Council Chamber. _ Always fighting with myself, me versus the Jedi Code. What I know to be right versus what is expected of me. But which is it this time? Does it even matter?_ He started moving, a step toward the doors leading to the exterior walkway. _Did it ever?_ At the doorway he turned his head toward the others, all calmness once again. "This way."

Only Miyuki moved instantly, the others shared a look amongst themselves before following, hastened by feeling dozens of Republic Army soldiers starting to move toward them. _ Are you sure about this? _ Miyuki caught up to him quickly in the black of the night, all of them following his lead and letting the light of their lightsabers disappear.

_You should know better than asking me that after all this time_. A simple gesture of the Force threw a pair of white armoured soldiers over the rail as Cahal led them on unhindered by the patrol.

"Yes, I should." After which he felt only silence, silence trying to hold back a wave of depression. _It won't be easy, but we do what we have to do_.

_Crap! _ "Move!" They were not fifty feet away from an opening in the wall, cradling the walkway as it led back inside the Temple when lights and a deep hum announced an LAAT Gunship the moment before it swung around the side of the outer wall, flashlights landing on Cahal and his group not a moment before it unleashed a wave of rocketfire.

As the rockets first landed in front of him he was squeezed against the kids following him so close behind that he instinctively grabbed Miyuki by her clothing and threw her behind himself at them.

As the Gunship tilted to turn their rockets on him he felt a couple of his group try to scatter, only to get pinned in place by the gunship's side turret. Just as a rocket came in at him Cahal turned his hands out to either side, throwing up a net of the Force that a rocket exploded against. Then the second. Then the third. Four, five, six, all slamming into the barrier and creating a wall of fire.

_Last one_. Just as the Force told him he pushed, throwing the fire back so it engulfed the gunship like water washing across sand. _ Don't think you get it that easy_. He then used the Force to reach into the vehicle, into one of the rocket holding bays, and did something that after so many years had become effortless to him. He detonated the rocket. Just as the gunship pulled out of the wave of flame the entire cockpit seemed to explode.

Cahal stepped forward to the rail to watch the gunship, aflame, go into a tailspin as it hurtled to the ground almost a hundred feet below. He turned back to the kids to see them all staring at him, shocked.

"What did you just do?"

"I couldn't follow any of it."

"And what happened to the gunship?"

"I think it just exploded. But that barrier was amazing!"

Miyuki said nothing. She was more than accustomed to him being able to perform feats that many said should have been beyond him, do things with such minute amounts of Force energy they were barely detectable.

But his eyes had already turned back to the Jedi Council Chamber, and the bastion of dark energy that had begun moving up the tower. _He's getting closer_.

"Come on." He said to them, stepping into a jog to move on. _ So little time left_. But that in itself was meant to be an odd concept for a Jedi.


	3. The Ambit of Duality

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

_22 BBY, Month 7 – Low Orbit over the planet Yag'Dhul_

Beneath the thick, unapologetic atmospheric conditions, and above the massive, crashing waves of the ocean, the Republic Carrack-class light cruiser _Resilient_ appeared out of hyperspace, slamming into the ocean only to reappear a few seconds later, skimming the water and crashing through the massive waves thrown about by the colossal storms.

The vessel slows down when it's pilots spot the approaching landmass; giant cliffs stretching over a mile into the sky, only the apex of the cliffs visible through the low-lying vapour clouds being created as the giant waves crash into the rock. The ship rolls onto it's side and out of it's cargo door shoots three LAAT Republic Gunships before it disappears once more beneath the waters. The three gunships stick close to the cliffs as they skirt the waves, the pilots pushing it hard to keep their formation tight as they shoot around the rock-face and into a fjord.

Cahal stood in the transport section of the lead gunship, looking out between the pilots to where they were headed. "I can feel it from here, Master."

He had been told he had more than natural skill as a telepath, but his little apprentice completely blew him out of the water. What came to him with a few years of training and effort Miyuki did with unrecorded casualness. He felt himself smile at the thought, _And I thought I'd caused a stir in the Temple_.

_Arrogance is the prerogative of the talented. And the foolish_. He smiled at the small girl topped with a red mop of hair to his right. _Not always are they mutually exclusive, little one_. She looked up at him, smiling, _You don't have to tell me_. What transpired between their minds next was no actual words of any sort, just an overflow of mutual fondness that resulted in him mussing her hair and her knocking his hand away.

All of that still took effort on their part, and it was beyond many Jedi to achieve such a connection at all. _She is becoming more skilled all the time. _And then he felt it too, a sort of faint _thump_, _thump_. A steady rhythm, as though someone were beating against drums._ But we'll see if she can keep it up through this_. He stepped up to the cockpit and leaned between the pilots, gesturing off to their right. "Over there."

"Yes sir." _Ever find it odd how their responses seem automated? Almost like a machine_. He moved his arm down as the gunship turned, his fingers finding the terrain display; pinpointing for the pilots exactly where to take them. _And that they all sound the same is in no way even remotely disconcerting_.

He turned to look at Miyuki, nothing left to do but wait. _Patience little one, mind on the now. None of us are comfortable with this_. _We have more important things to concern ourselves with_.

The three gunships kept their tight formation as they flew over the edge of the cliff so close to the ground the sand below them billows into a huge dust-cloud that streaks behind them as they shot across the plains of the Red Desert. Behind them the _Resilient_ lay waiting their return. Off to the east sat one of the largest of the Separatist shipyards was crawling with the advanced machines of the Techno Union as they dealt with the natives of the planet; a people known for their mathematical brilliance.

And ahead of them lay the subject of their mission. Only a few days ago Cahal had been dispatched to treaty with the locals and to at the very least try to get them to remain neutral, but it was not to be. Instead he had been greeted by a feeling of immense uneasiness that was confirmed the moment he lay eyes on the shipyards, looking then as they did even these few days later, the frameworks of giant warships laying everywhere he looked. But the shipyards were not what caught him when he came beneath the clouds.

After a quick scout he was discovered and harassed away from the planet's surface before contacting the Jedi Council, who immediately ordered him to return, dispatching the _Resilient_, for support. Sometimes his old Master's faith in him still surprised him, it seemed Mace Windu had less trust to go around as the days went by.

Cahal felt the worry emanating from Miyuki when the gunships touched down in a dank cave. _It's so strong_. But quick as it was to rise in her he felt it dim once again as she stepped with him onto the rock floor. They were so close the Dark Side called out to them like a beacon. For Cahal, so many years trained in the Force, it would have been impossible for many not to follow it.

Behind him the squad of seven Special Forces sent to back them up spoke a few hushed words before they quietened at the command of their Lieutenant, the helmets they wore giving them light in the darkness when Cahal and Miyuki, like most Jedi, needed only the Force to guide them. _Almost as dark as the Underground_. But needed isn't to say relied. Having spent his formative years where no light touched, it was nothing new to him. And Miyuki had better eyesight than any normal human.

Fifty yards. A hundred. Even more as Cahal led the group down into the rock, deeper into the planet. The mere presence of the two Jedi a comfort to the Republic soldiers as they continued into the darkness, their steps far more sure than the others even though to the soldier's eyes they walked through the tunnels blind.

But Cahal and Miyuki didn't need their eyes. Many Jedi would use the Force in their situation, feeling the very shape of the tunnel, becoming one with the world around them. If they were a true master, like Kenobi or Yoda or Windu, they would become one with the others around them, the Force guiding all of them in an overarching synchrony. But Cahal and Miyuki were not Kenobi or Yoda or Windu. Not only would Cahal never match their strength or wisdom, but Miyuki was still only a child. _A Jedi, but still a child_.

But that didn't stop them being more confident or relaxed in this situation than even some of the most seasoned Masters. Though neither could truly become one with the world around them, they both needn't hone such a skill. With effort and focus they were both able to tap into not only each other's heads, but also their backup troop's as well. Each of the Republic soldiers saw the tunnels through a a pair of eyes looking through green hue in their helmets to allow them to see in the dark. Both Cahal and Miyuki saw through every one of the nine pairs of eyes. This was how they naturally saw the universe, and for Miyuki, such a gifted child, this made Cahal her perfect mentor. Telepathy, not a dying skill, but in Cahal and Miyuki it was a true gift whereas many Jedi required effort and a great deal of time to discover and master.

_Do you feel that Master?_ He could. The dark seemed to pulse, or perhaps more like a steady drum beat. Tapping out a rhythm that was growing louder the deeper they went. _Not louder, stronger_. _Very close now_.

Indeed, they could see the end of the tunnel now. Through the eyes of the soldiers behind them it seemed as though the tunnel just ended. Not a cave-in, or even any sign that the diggers had discovered anything at all. "Sir, are you sure this is right?" To them, the tunnel appeared to have simply ended.

Cahal stepped up to the tunnel's end, and so close he could feel a light hum coming off of it, and the drums beating behind it. _ An illusion. But hiding what?_ Cahal reached forth his hand and to the soldier's eyes it appeared that as his hand grazed the wall's surface the rock sort of melted away, leaving just behind it a wall. An impossibly smooth wall with no cracks or breaks. A wall made of a single piece of rock. A wall with an inscription that was written around in a large circle in a script not known to any outside the Jedi Order, and even precious few of those could actually read it.

_Peace is a lie, there is only passion._ Cahal knew the script for what it was when he saw it, but he couldn't read it. _Through passion, I gain strength_. He'd never learned the ancient Sith writings, he'd never seen the need. _Through strength, I gain power_. That didn't stop him knowing the words. _Through power, I gain victory_. He knew them, had seen them before somewhere, but he didn't remember when, or where. _Through victory, my chains are broken_. It was almost as though it were another life. _The Force shall set me free_. The words resounded in his skull, a memory not quite there, but it was like trying to hold water in his hand so he pushed those thoughts away, focusing on the now. _What do you think?_

"Are you kidding?"

That made him smile. Miyuki always was one for directness. "Alright then." _And there's something about those drums_. He touched the wall in the middle of the inscription – though that needn't have mattered – and with the Force he, kind of _twisted_ the wall. Everyone heard the rock move against itself, and then the wall cracked from bottom to top in a line as impossibly smooth as the wall itself; and parted.

No light came from within, only more darkness. _ And the drums are stronger. The air itself seems to amplify them_. The group stepped through the doorway behind Cahal. _The living force has it's perils as much as it's wonders_.

_Speaking of which_. The moment Cahal stepped through he had to duck and roll to avoid a beam of blue plasma before it took his head.

"The Colonel is under attack."

"Spread arc."

"Did you see it?"

"The Padawan's engaged."

"Enemy sighted."

"No shot, I have no shot."

Cahal saw all of it, for what it was worth through the green haze of the soldier's helmets. By the time he had rolled to his feet he looked up to see by the flashing plasma lights; Miyuki holding her ground between their assailant and the soldiers.

"Wait for the opportunity."

"It looks like a Muun."

_A Muun turned into a Techno Union nightmare maybe_. The creature was indeed a Muun, slighter taller than average at just over two meters, it towered over Miyuki who was still holding her own with relative ease. _Note, thank Obi-wan again for the advanced Soresu lessons_. But none of that was what held his attention. That belonged to the metal exoskeleton.

Metal rods running along along the Muun's frame, from a helmet covering the eyes and what looked like a breastplate, spine and heavy legs, to what seemed to be fully functional arms, right down to the individual fingers; all fixed to the body of the Muun by tiny needles. And attached to the exoskeleton forearms were a pair of plasma weapons, not unlike the lightsaber, though only about two-thirds the length and the beams as thick as the Muun's arms.

All of this came together to provide strength and speed that the Muun should never have been able to achieve. _ And presumably perception too_._ If only it were the only one_. Orange plasma sprouted in his left hand as the Force told him four more Muun stepped toward them in a circle, more bursts of blue plasma lighting the room up.

"There's more sir!"

"Form a tight arc and open fire!"

Blasterfire burst into existence at the new enemies, who immediately started running so fast they were little more than blurs in the darkness trailing blue light as they shot around the room.

Cahal darted over and even with speed that it never should have had, the first Muun couldn't escape being pinned between him and Miyuki; combining to strike at it's weapons, and when they died a quick strike to the spine of the exoskeleton had the Muun hit the ground. "Stick close."

"Right." _ The drums are so strong in here_. They needed to focus on the now, but the air itself seemed to beat against their skin to the steady rhythm. And the Force was calling him. _ Now_. He wove through the blasterfire as it cut through the darkness, following the Force and bringing his lightsaber crashing into the plasma weapons of one of the cyborg Muun, stopping it in it's charge toward the soldiers.

He exchanged one blow, two as the Muun stepped forward, driving his weapons down trying to carve Cahal's head open as he stepped back and deflected the weapons away toward the floor. _Three, two, one..._ And the Muun that came up behind him was stopped short as Miyuki came flying in from the side, using her wrists to control her weapon as it cleaved through it. Cahal in turn, twisted and spun the cyborg in front of him around, holding all three beams of plasma behind it's back; as with his right hand he grabbed the spine of the exoskeleton where it joined the Muun's pelvis, using the Force he overloaded the joint with energy and then there was burst of electrical power as he ripped the spine out of the joint and a dozen needles in the small of it's back tore free of it's flesh. The Muun squealed, and Cahal was frozen in shock for a moment. _ That's not right._ It writhed on the floor, flopping around in an absurd attempt to get back on it's feet and continue fighting. _Would be funny if it weren't so sad_.

"Master!" he turned to see Miyuki pinned by the last two, the Republic soldiers having halted their weapons fire. He flashed across the room, his orange weapon crashing against blue as he struck for one of the Muun's head, altering his strike slightly to knock the weapon away as he swung around in the air, his left knee slamming into and breaking the neck of the exoskeleton in a blur of speed. It's blue weapons instantly winked out of existence.

The last Muun in a moment seemed to completely recalculate the position it was in, shifting it's stance to fend them both off at once. Suddenly, with the Muun on the defensive, everything seemed to change. Cahal took the lead and pressed the cyborg, Miyuki almost eager at his side, but the Muun was fast enough and strong enough as it accounted for every strike they attempted, and he had to make sure not to over-reach or the Muun would have the speed to counter.

And just like that they had been fighting the last Muun for as long as they'd fought the other four. Behind him Cahal heard the Republic solders kill the Muun he'd left flailing on the floor. Beside him, Miyuki started trying to move around to attack from the side, but the Muun accounted easily, stepping around to keep both him and Miyuki side to side.

"Well then, how about we try this?" Cahal spoke as he started pushing the speed up even more, piling on the pressure as he kept striking toward the Muun's head and shoulders. The moment both it's arms jumped up to fend him off Miyuki flew in from underneath, sliding her lightsaber up underneath the Muun's breastplate and with a small twist carved through all three of it's hearts. In that moment of slack Cahal whipped his blade in an arc and cut through the Muun's forearms, taking the weapons apart.

But he had little interest in finishing it as he watched the creature lower itself to it's knees where it seems to look at it's missing hands, struggling to breathe, and then wrap it's arms across it's chest before curling up on the floor to die.

_I need to know_. He switched his lightsaber off, and by the light of Miyuki's he knelt down beside the dying Muun, took a hold of the helmet which he now saw was as much of a plate bonded to the creature's body. A small trickle of Force energy was enough to sever the bonding and he lifted the plate away. Looking into the Muun's eyes he saw life, but not much else. "Master?"

He reached out with both hands and took the Muun's head in them. With the touch he opened his mind and delved into the Muun's and found; _Nothing_. No barrier, no attempt to keep him out, no memories except for the darkness. _Nothing at all_.

He let the connection go and stood up. _How is that possible?_ He looked up to the soldiers he had brought with him, making sure the others were dead too. _ No, that'd be too easy_. He looked back to the Muun at his feet. _ Would it?_ He found himself struggling for clear thoughts. The drums were calling.

"Master?"

Miyuki stood at his side, waiting as he kept his eyes on the Muun, then raising his right hand to look at his palm, covered in an electrical burn and beginning to throb. All the while he saw the room they were in through the eyes of the soldiers; an open stone chamber with one wall that gaped into a long hallway. _**Thrum-thrumb, thrum-thrumb**_. "Come on." He turned to the hallway, following the sound of drums.

"Master, something's not right here." Miyuki followed his lead, walking at his side as the soldiers followed on behind. "It's just wrong. The Force feels, slick somehow."

"I know Yuki. I know." He was trying to remain a calming presence, and judging by how he felt the emanations from his apprentice fluctuate and then settle somewhat, he was doing a better job than he thought. _I've felt that before_. And it wasn't the only thing unsettling.

_At least the Soresu study has paid off_. Miyuki had always wanted to be more proactive, but with youth and small size he had helped her understand that those things can come later, explaining that that was how he had done it. It wasn't that she was unwilling, far from it, and Obi-wan had described her as one of the fastest learners he'd ever seen. _ No, it's just that Soresu and proactive don't normally go well together_.

Soresu, the most defensive and energy efficient form of lightsaber combat will allow a master to outlast almost any assault. _ And Miyuki can already withstand a heavy barrage and she's not even passed the trials, won't for years yet_. All wrists, she was already good enough that she can fall back into what amounted to a thick defensive ball with a solid stance. Despite her small size Cahal had never allowed her to use a smaller length blade, insisting that she learn to wield one only a faction smaller than his own. And the result? Her abnormal, slightly too-long arms had bested many more experienced Padawans in sparring contests. _But already in this war she's begun to learn the value of caution and deception. But I'll make a proper Jedi out of her yet_.

"Colonel."

"I see it Lieutenant."

Five tubes rising from the floor to the roof, almost like pillars. Various power leads and tubing hanging from the top with open locks at their base.

"I'd say they're the cells for the Muun."

"Does anyone see any more?"

"No Lieutenant."

"Colonel sir? What do you think?"

_That they're treated like machines_. Though the drums were ever present, the air beating around them, the Force told him that those five were all, _For now, at least_. "There are no more here. We move on." He stepped up to one nonetheless, taking a close look. "But Lieutenant."

"Yes Colonel?"

Cahal reached up with a hand and touched the equipment. _But if not, what are they?_ He found only one answer, and remembering that he saw the most complete nothing he could have ever considered, he didn't like it. "You know why we're here."

"Yes sir. Corporal, set some explosives.

"Yes sir."

Cahal stepped away as the Corporal took his place, moving toward the end of the hallway just beyond the tubes. He glanced at Miyuki, feeling her so unsettled. _She's so quiet. Like me_. But he didn't have it in him to change that right then. He needed to know, and the drums were calling.

At the end of the hall was a heavy steel door with no apparent way through. _ Someone really doesn't want anyone to see what is in there_. He touched the door, and delving it with the Force he found the right gears, triggering it open with a _click_ and a _screech_.

"Well, I guess they know we're here now." Cahal looked at his apprentice, saw her smile, and couldn't help but give one in return. _Her ability to do that amazes me sometimes_. Her begins weren't easy, even compared to him.

He let out a breath and stepped into the next room, seeing all as the squad fanned out around them, flash-lights sweeping over every nook, cranny and alcove. Stairs, leading in three directions, the drums their loudest from those leading further down. _ Well, even if they weren't thumping I'd kinda know where to go_. Miyuki followed him down, the soldiers only a few moments behind after setting up sensors to let them know if anyone was to come up behind.

"You'd think they'd have at least one light." Came from one of the soldiers. _ What would a Sith need to fear from the shadows?_ But his only actual response was to raise his hand as they came to the end of the staircase passageway, the soldiers stopping and grouping at his command. Without looking around the corner he knew there was at least a weak light-source in the room, _But the drums are too strong to know anything else_. The air itself beating against them, the Force slick and trying to slip away.

"Sir?" The Lieutenant whispered to him, stepping forward to move around the corner. "This is what we're here for." _Alright_. He nodded, the officer taking command of his squad.

Silently, decisively the soldiers moved passed Cahal and his apprentice, the two Jedi using their eyes to see what they saw. And it was exactly what Cahal had expected. Five groups of half a dozen tanks, smaller versions of the columned tubes that they'd passed at the gates. Tables of research materials and data storage. And dull-blue lights coming from above that never shone enough to reveal the whole room.

He could feel Miyuki disheartening at his side. _She won't be the same after this_. "What is this place?" Cahal stepped around the corner, Miyuki a moment behind heading to a different group of tubes from him.

"There's a cavern over here, Colonel." Three of the soldiers were in a line off to the side as the rest were divided across the room, just looking around at the tubes and materials. "It doesn't seem to have an end." Cahal could see, to their eyes there was no back or bottom, just the rocky roof above their heads stretching off into the distance above a endless black cavern. _A fine metaphor if ever there was one_.

"Don't disturb anything." He stepped up to a group of the tanks, seeing the little bodies of flesh suspended in a watery-red fluid. _ The drums seems to be coming from all of them. All at once_.

"Not drums. Heartbeats." Miyuki muttered, so soft a normal person wouldn't have heard if they were standing right next to her. She walked across the room, eyes sharp despite the darkness. "Kenobi. Mundi. Secura."

_Windu and Ti. All newly scribbled down, all beating as one_. Cahal kept on moving toward the end of the room, where one solitary tank sat almost like a shrine. The creature within was a four year old human boy. _ Doesn't take a genius to know this one is special_.

"You knew about this, didn't you?" Miyuki was frozen in place, still trying to comprehend what she was seeing. "From upstairs I mean, you knew it would be this."

"Yes." But that didn't stop any of the unease when he saw the names of the most powerful and skilled Jedi of his era. _ Or what this is, and what it could mean_. He came to a stop in front of the tank, not even needing to look at the name to know. _ Skywalker_.

"Master?"

How could he know when he don't have all the pieces? _ It could be Dooku, seeking aid in the war he sought an obedient powerhouse to possibly fuel a mistrust of the Jedi_. But that wasn't right, he had no genetics experts in his circle of friends or Confederacy.

"Master?"

_His Master then?_ But that didn't make sense either. From what they knew of Sidious, he was on Coruscant, possibly in the Senate.

"Master?"

He shut his eyes, trying in vain to think despite the slamming beats filling his head. _ But what of the Chosen One? And why only one? _ With a group of mindless Skywalkers to command a person could break the galaxy. _ Break. Way to undersell it_.

"Cahal?" That brought his attention around instantly, finding Miyuki standing barely two steps away and looking straight at him. "Please, say something." He took a breath and focused on his apprentice to try and put the sickening slime on the Force out of his mind. It was then that he noticed.

"We're missing people." _Two to be accurate_. Two of their Special Forces support had disappeared into the darkness. _ And I can't feel them. Can't connect with them_.

"Neither can I." But three were still looking out into the giant gaping chasm. One was working across the tanks and desks, setting more explosives, and the last was about to step around a corner and be lost to the darkness.

"Wait!" Both he and Miyuki shouted at the same instant that there was a loud _Crack_ to accompany a burst of energy that struck the man in white armour, covering him in jagged forks of red electricity and throwing him across the room. _Red?_

The other soldiers all snapped around and raised their weapons as they watched their comrade hit the ground, waiting for commands from Cahal who stood steady, lightsaber handle ready in his left hand. First came the steps, accompanied by intermittent _crackling_., barely heard as the Force in the room continued to beat, fuelled by the unnaturally growing life around them.

Then the man emerged from the shadow, body but not face lit by the flashing of his red energies. "It's interesting what you can achieve with knowledge when you lack raw power." _Yes, it is_. The man threw his hand out and the red energy shot from his hand once more to crash into the soldier just barely rising. And by the red light Cahal saw the man's face, and froze. _Xoren?_

He didn't know how much time had passed before it registered that Miyuki was now standing between the man and the white soldier with her lightsaber drawn. He seemed to look at her as little more than an annoyance. "Out of the way little girl."

"No."

He felt Miyuki try and do the same; reaching out to try and touch Xoren's mind, but they found instead the Force at it slickest, and no matter how they tried, the moment they touched his head they simply slipped away. _There is so much wrong here_. Xoren looked at him with a twinkle in his eyes, a look he'd never seen on his friend's face before.

"That won't work in here Cahal Meyrick, Jedi Knight." _ Even the voice is wrong somehow_. "This is my place. And here, you'll obey my rules." Xoren stepped backward, and to the regular eyes he stepped into the darkness, but with the Force and the night-vision of the soldiers it was more accurate to say the darkness enveloped him. _ Patience, calmness, think_.

"I can't tell you how long I waited for this." The voice seemed to come from all around them, all at once. "So many years trapped. Trapped with the knowledge of what I thought to be my total failure."

He could feel Miyuki starting to become agitated. "What is this? What have you done to Xoren?"

"Who are you?" He tried to calm himself though, stemming the panic welling up within. _Thrum-thrumb_. The incessant beating didn't make it easy by itself.

"And then this creature found me. Sent out to search the galaxy like many others to find anything on your hiding Sith Lord." A twisting, inhuman laugh. "Well, I guess he found more something to occupy him."

Cahal looked to the lone tank at his side. "So you want the body of the Chosen One." _A body without a mind_. His thoughts on the Muun upstairs. "You were a Muun."

"Sure, why not. It doesn't matter anymore." Cahal felt what amounted to a slight breeze in the Force, almost imperceptible against the beating in the room and his skull. He turned to see Xoren reappear by the table, his arm a shadow that punched through the white armoured soldier, only the Force telling him that he squeezed the soldier's heart until it burst and then threw him across the room, the other three hitting the ground as their Lieutenant flew by them and into the darkness of the chasm. Xoren looked at the blood and muscle covering his hand. "So, fragile." He licked the blood off his hand. "So, tainted. A mockery of science really."

Xoren walked across the room toward the darkened far wall. _Possession. It has to be_. "Who are you?"

But Xoren seemed to be treating him as little more than entertainment. "Right now I am Xoren Frey. But soon." He stepped into the shadows and touched the wall, which rose up into the ceiling at command. "Soon I will be the Chosen One. And in the interim," the rising wall revealed another tank, this one far larger than any of the others, almost the side of the wall itself. "I think I'll demonstrate what I meant earlier, Jedi." _Such contempt_.

He looked to Miyuki behind him, still standing by the injured soldier. He felt her mind jump for his as he went for hers. _ Be ready for anything_. They both blinked at each other as the words crashed into each other, not knowing who echoed who. Fighting a smile they turned back to the tank one of his closest friend was opening. _ I'm going to reach into him and pull this thing out of it's own arse_.

_What?_ Dull light filled the giant tank as the liquid was flushed out of it. A creature all bone and tentacles with seven and a half feet of height. _ Krevaaki. But no, that's not right. Krevaaki don't have legs_. And this thing did, a pair of strong double-jointed legs holding up the tentacles that rippled around it's bulk and bony face with more, tiny tentacles running from the top of it's head like thick hair.

"Shoot it before it wakes!" The Sergeant commanded. _No argument here_. And then they fired at the creature, and Cahal had to quickly dodge, the blasterfire shattering the glass tank as it bounced off the creature's hide, flying off in every other direction.

"Stop!" he threw his hand up, the soldiers immediately obedient.

"Some nice toys you have there." Xoren said, smiling, "But I think mine is better." The creature slowly stretched six tentacles to grip the walls and stepped out of it's broken tank. It's head turned to Xoren, who simply smiled up at it, made a gesture and by the command the creature turned to them. _ Every tentacle is forked, almost like fingers. And the underside has no thick hide_.

"Got it." He felt Miyuki ready herself, but his attention kept shifting naturally to Xoren. _With every answer I have only more questions_. And it was becoming more of a fight just to hold onto the Force the longer they stayed.

Xoren lifted up a bag and tossed it, opening up in front of the creature who moved it's tentacles so fast it was barely a blur; snatching six small lightsaber hilts out of the air. _Vaapad!_ A moment later they erupted in a variety of colours, though all just over half the length of a normal Jedi weapon. _ Any small advantage really_.

Orange burst from his left hand as he put his right foot back, turning side-on to the creature. "You stay back and wait." He ordered before going to speak over his other shoulder to Miyuki, but deciding better of it when he felt her readiness.

Xoren remained stationary, watching. "Let's see if what he thinks of the pair of you is true."

The creature stepped forward, the six tentacles waving smoothly, almost elegantly in the air in front of them. Then it struck with a _crack_, whipping a blade forward to keep itself well out of Cahal's reach. A half a moment later another _crack_, and another, and another. The creature seemed to be warming up, stretching limbs long unused. Inching closer to him and bringing more strikes down on him.

_But it's uncoordinated_. And as Cahal stepped and twisted he saw a chance and struck, connecting with the exoskeleton that covered it's tentacle, only to knock the limb away. _ And inexperienced. And lacks forethought_. He kept stepping and striking, always urging the creature to keep straining to pin him, and deep within him he felt, totally underwhelmed. _No experienced Jedi should have a problem with this_.

As it overextended two strikes in a poor attempt to pin him Cahal struck at the underside, ripping long gashes in the unprotected flesh. The creature screamed and dropped two blades. In the lapse he looked over at Xoren, mouth agape in shock. "Is that it?"

"No!" he spat, confidence all gone he threw his hand up and launched red lightening at him which Cahal caught in his blade with ease, standing his ground as he watched Xoren flee down the passageway behind him.

"You handle this!" He yelled at Miyuki as he charged after Xoren, dodging a pair of strikes with ease before slipping by the creatue. Glancing at the last of the soldiers he commanded, "Aim for it's eyes!" and then they were gone from his view, the heavy drums slowly easing from around him as he followed Xoren. It is difficult to relate to a normal being, but it is sort of feeling out a scent within the Force.

He raced down the hall, seeing a dead end ahead. _Have to try better than that_. He wrapped himself up in a ball of energy and threw himself at the wall, exploding through it in a shower of dust and rock. And then he found himself in a hanger. The Force gave him the warning and he got his weapon up to catch more red lightening.

Taking the energy in he turned it, and folded it. "Don't you have anything new?!" And he threw it out in every direction, sending light to all corners of a room made for darkness. He saw Xoren disappear in a puff of shadowy smoke, break apart and race around behind him as though caught in a breeze. _ That it?_ He reversed his grip on his weapon, going to drive through where the shadows collected behind him; where it connected with a line of blue plasma as it surged into existence. He turned to look into the eyes of his friend, his brother, and found nothing he remembered.

"You have no idea who you're trifling with boy." A flick of the switch and the man in front of him triggered the other end of the saberstaff.

"You seem to be in over your head." The man spun the staff, throwing the orange plasma away as he backed up. _Being Xoren won't save you_.

"I know all you're skills and moves." As he said it he kept back, cautious. _Then lets see you defend against them_. Cahal stepped forward, pumping the Force into his body, raising his blade in both hands. Stance steady and solid as he advanced, orange blade whipping around at all angles as fast as he had moved in avoidance of the creature only moments before. And the man that was Xoren was stepping back hurriedly, twisting and turning the saberstaff awkwardly to catch all the strikes coming in at him.

"You can't keep this up!" The man screamed, manoeuvring just enough to avoid being backed against a wall. _I won't need to_. So caught up in the hectic nature of the fight, the man had no time to notice anything else, had no chance to notice the slight trickle of Force energy that Cahal manifested and slammed into his left leg from the back, tripping him up and throwing him off so completely Cahal felt the man know it was over before he'd finished. Without slowing his blade strikes he cut the saberstaff in half, and as the man's backside hit the ground a swift stroke the opposite direction sliced the hand and the still functional half-hilt apart as one.

And with that the man started wriggling to get back, raising his still-together hand up to tell him to keep back as he panicked. _ As I thought_. Cahal took a breath as he slowed down, sweat trickling down his arms, trying to relax once more. "Wait! Wait! Wait! Cahal!" With that he took a closer look, and his friend was back.

Everything changed, the way he held himself, the twinkle in the eyes, that drop in voice. "Xoren?"

"Of course it is Cahal!" He was straining to hold himself together. Cahal could see it, it seemed as if his friend had aged a lifetime in the small time he hadn't been himself. Cahal lowered his weapon to his side, looking down at his friend, cradling his half-hand. _I did that_. "Cahal?"

"Yeah?"

"He's not gone." _ I know_. He could still feel him there, that slick feeling remained stuck to his friend. Xoren looked up at him. "You know what you're gonna have to do." _ I know_. "It's the only way." _ Maybe not, but point taken_. "Do it."

"You're asking me to kill you."

"Cahal," his friend spoke softly, already comforting him. "You're setting me free."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"You're a Jedi. Do what you are meant to." _ Alright_. He couldn't say no to those eyes. They seemed to reach right into him. His grip tightened as his mouth twisted into disgust. He raised his weapon. Xoren smiled gently, fondly. "Thank you." _Don't_. A tiny turn of the wrist, with so little pressure a child's arm could have stopped him, yet he met no resistance as his blade separated Xoren's head from his torso.

And then, as though the Force were playing some cruel joke on him, the slickness that covered all slipped off him, and he saw. And he already knew it was too late. Miyuki had been watching from the hole in the wall he had busted through, saw him behead his friend, and neither of them had the proper time to react.

A red cloud burst out of Xoren's corpse and momentarily hovered in front of Cahal, small forked energy crackling through it. Then it seemed to move as though it had a better idea, coalesced into a tiny ball, and shot like a beam across the room at Miyuki who dived in an effort to get out of the way, but the beam altered course and slammed into her. She seemed aglow with dull red light for the briefest of moments before she slammed into the rocky wall and then face first to the floor.

Cahal hurried over to her, the orange light from his weapon non-existent. _ Please no. Please no_. He figured it was pretty obvious what it was as he knelt beside his apprentice, feeling that sickening slickness covering her life-force. _ Not this. I never saw this_. And then he saw the lightsaber hilt by his Padawan's hand move ever so slightly into it. _ This isn't happening. Not today_.

He fell back as Miyuki flew up off the floor, blue plasma streaking for Cahal's face. His head dropped well below the beam as his foot came up, kicking the little girl well away from him.

Cahal rolled over and pushed himself to his feet to see Miyuki land on hers and charge him, weapon raised above her head. "Jedi!" she screamed in a twisted, deep voice. "You can't kill what is already dead!"

Cahal reignited his lightsaber only when Miyuki was about to strike him, stepping back smoothly, effortlessly holding off the assault. "I already killed my friend. Do you really think I won't hesitate?"

"That's- up- to- you-!" there seemed to be so much effort going into every move the girl made, but there were no strength or precision to any of the strikes. _ This is not happening! _ Saberlocking above her head with his left hand he grabbed her wrists with his right, then planted his foot into her gut, knocking all the air out of her. Twisting he ripped the weapon out of her hands and threw her onto the floor.

When she rolled over her mouth fell open in shock as he tossed his weapon to the side. _Come on_. She didn't disappoint. She flew at him. As her arms and legs tried to pelt him with blows assisted by the Force his hands went to her head, and reaching inside her he put her to sleep. _Thank you, idiot_.

She went limp and he caught her in his arms. _So light_. She weighed far less than he expected. _And the shadow is enveloping her_. It wasn't in the same sense as when the man had shifted through space, but similar enough. _ The man_. His eyes fell on what was left of his friend, and his stomach churned. _ He wanted that. Wanted this. Well, not today_. He held her in his arms, hands on her head. In one sense he was delving her mind. In another their minds touched. Both were correct and yet not quite.

As he went inside he found himself dragged off-track. Looking around he discovered a place where a moment translated into an eternity outside. And there, in this place of shifting time and realities, a small girl turned to face him. He saw the visage of the girl he knew, blue tattoo-brands gone and replaced with blade lines wrapping her limbs and torso, a black as dark as the orbs of her eyes. _ Black eyes_.

_Hello Master_.

_You're not Yuki_.

_Of course I am. I'm just more than I was before. You're not, afraid of that are you?_

_Miyuki knows me better than that_.

_Perhaps she doesn't know you as well as you think. Perhaps she isn't who you think she is. Perhaps the Jedi are not what she wants. Perhaps the Jedi don't want what either of you want_. All the while, that smile and demeanour was the same as before. The same as when he'd infested Xoren.

_The Jedi are a group of people. Strictly Orthodox perhaps, but people nonetheless._

_ People wouldn't adhere to your vaunted Grand Master's deception to lean toward his Orthodoxy. People are the ones who threatened to leave in the wake of those like Yoda when they chose to outlaw relationships._

_ What do you mean?_

_ Classic Jedi to misunderstand too. A Dark Sorceress curses a pair of Jedi, using their love as a weapon to hurt and punish them, and they decide to completely outlaw an innate concept of life itself. And yet, the real tragedy was that he was Rain's brother, cursed because he'd always had her back, swore he always would, until she indiscriminately killed that is._

_ You're just trying to waste my time._

_ Tell me it isn't the truth. You can't, because the Jedi have rewritten their records on the subject, deciding after what amounted to rebellion to simply allow what they saw as the problem for the time being and discourage it later._

_ No, not just that_. Somewhere, deep within himself, somehow, he knew it was truth, or at least, most of it. And suddenly, he saw a man and a woman, both no older than himself, hugging. A simple image, conveying so much.

_ What?_

_ What?_

_ How could you know that?_

_I just do_. And for the first time, the man was in such shock that Miyuki's entire face changed, turning into the large, smooth yellow-skinned head and lidless eyes of a Bith. _ No more time wasting_. He reached across the intervening space and touched the Bith's face, reaching into him and removing the cloud on the place he was in.

He felt her, pleading to him for help. An ever quietening voice as he struggled to pull the slick shadow away from her. _ It just slips away, pulls itself loose_. He tried, and again, and again. But the more he tried, the quieter Miyuki got, and the slicker the shadow became. The shadow absorbing and twisting her in on herself. _ No! You're not getting her!_ He was losing her. The shadow laughing him off as it changed her. But looking at the shadow that covered her mind he still couldn't argue that it wasn't her, it was just wrong, twisted, sick. _ No damn it! Not another one! _ If asked before that very moment, he would have said what he did next was impossible. _Not today! _ Or at the very least dismissed it out of hand that it wouldn't serve any cohesive purpose.

His mind touched with his apprentice's far more deeply than it ever had before. And there, inside her, where the shadow had not yet found root, he tore himself apart. He took all his memories, everything that he had done, everything that he had been through. Everything that his life had amounted to up to that point, and jammed it into her skull. All that his life had been, and meant to him.

And the shadow stopped it's creep over her mind. _ So, that's who you are_. He heard. In his head, or Miyuki's, he couldn't be sure. But the shadow trembled, unsure. _ Then what about me? We are who we choose to be_. Who said what Cahal wasn't sure. He opened his eyes, and looked straight into his young apprentice's too-big blue orbs, stained with black flecks. Lines of shadow seemed to stretch across her body, holding on to her, threatening to rip her apart. She smiled up at him. "You stupidhead."

"Which part?"

"All of it." _ Look at yourself_. He felt her do just that, and suddenly she screamed as light exploded out of her. Her eyes, mouth, and the tattoo-brands that had been imprinted on her since her birth, all glowing bright as she was jerked up into the air, the light completely banishing the darkness from the room all around them.

After what seemed years but could only have been a few moments Miyuki fell from the air, Cahal catching her light-weight body easily in his arms. _ She's sleeping_. He could feel in her head that the shadow was completely gone. Somehow, it seemed clearer than he ever remembered it.

He looked from Miyuki to Xoren, and the wonder that filled him moments ago was completely gone. _ Time to go_. He pocketed his and Miyuki's lightsabers, and carried Xoren's body back to the cloning room where he stepped by the shot-apart body of the cloned creature as he met up with the three surviving men, two carrying the one who had been struck by lightening. "We're leaving." The same-faced trio had no complaints.

It took them far longer to reach the light of day than he remembered it taking to get down into the complex. When in the air once more the Special Forces Sergeant hit the detonator and nothing visible happened from their view. But Cahal felt the seismic disturbance in the planet's surface, just as the Gunships registered it. He felt a hand on his arm and looked down to see Miyuki's eyes open and looking at him. Then he understood the full extent of what he had done to save her. Without any effort whatsoever on either of their parts he heard her in his head. _I choose me_.


	4. Revelations Part II

The sun was falling on the Temple as a lone Jedi searched it's silent, empty halls, slipping from shadow to shadow. The only direction he knew was the one that the Force was guiding him. _Not to where I need to be now, but where I need to be when I get there_. It was the way of things, the way of the Jedi that he was simply a physical conduit for the will of the Force. Sometimes it wasn't enough, but that was why he had his brothers and sisters, the others of the Jedi Order, the other servants of peace. Because in the worst situations everything that usually should have mattered suddenly meant nothing, and it was only about his brethren, those that fought beside him.

The Jedi Padawan Cahal Meyrick walked alone onto a high walkway in a large, open room that served as a junction point for several places in the Temple. _And that is what is starting to eat at me_. As pupils they were all taught about the ancient Second Sith War, the implosion of the Brotherhood of Darkness and the hunting down of Bane, the last of the Sith Lords.

He hopped out onto the balcony rail and landed softly into the shadow of a large pillar on another walkway about halfway to the ground floor. When studying their history the self-destruction of Force-users can seem almost natural at times. _But they never see fit to help us come to terms with brother verses brother. Killing those who we're meant to be fighting with, shoulder to shoulder_. It would seem from an outsider's perspective that the Jedi Council liked to guard secrets. _Never mind whatever is in the holocrons that only a Master is allowed to see_.

Cahal came to a stop, crouching in the shadows as he watched two cloaked figures walk out of a door on the ground at the end of the room. A moment later they were met by two more from their right, and another who dropped down from an upper floor. _It's him_. The powerful young Jedi that threw him out of the Tower.

He couldn't hear a thing from where he hid, watching the six Jedi converge and speak with each other, not that he needed to though. He looked through the Force, and was told all he truly needed to know. Together, the five of them were like a large dark orb that was sitting on a suspended sheet – they had a weight to them, one the universe seemed to gravitate toward.

Then the one giving instruction turned their head, and he could make out the face underneath their hood. _Depa Billaba_. She was Master Windu's apprentice before him, and according to many was to be raised to Mastery very soon. _If she can fall_... There was no way to finish the thought. There were too many implications and he had absolutely no answers.

His grip tightened as he realised what he would have to do. _She's far too dangerous to be left wandering the Temple. If she were to sneak up on me it would be all finished_. He took a breath and relaxed his hand around the shaft of the lightsaber he had made on the fly from whatever pieces he could find around the Temple. A fleeting moment of fondness ran through him, he wasn't sure it would even work until he finished it, and in the few minutes he'd had it he had found himself liking the orange.

_Five are too many. Need to wait for them to separate_. And almost like a command two broke away and headed for the doorway Billaba had come out of. A moment later Billba turned the other way and started the long trek across the room, the other two at her heels. _ Soon_. He closed his eyes, listening and waiting.

_Now_. He reached out through the Force and pulled his arms across himself, then rose, took two steps, and leaped into their air. He opened his eyes as he landed on a part of a pillar, turning his head to see a clump of rubble flying at the three from the other side of the room. Billaba leaped backwards into the air, and Cahal jumped to meet her, igniting his new orange lightsaber and spinning as he hurtled toward her.

The two younger men jumped away at the last moment from the large rocks, and Cahal met Billaba in the air as the rocks crashed into the floor, her letting go of her lightsaber at the last possible moment before Cahal's blade cut the hilt in half, causing the barely seen green blade to flash and blink out of existence as Cahal whipped around and kicked her in the face.

He landed softly with his left knee on the floor, lightsaber held out to the side. _ They're recovering, need to be quick_. He never even raised his head, just charged the two younger men as they stood barely three feet from each other, both turning toward him as their blue blades burst into life. _ The second has a dual-blade, could be handy_. He pushed, using everything he knew as he darted from place to place, his body a blur as he kept the two men pinned tightly together, the four blades all cramped for room. At this range there was no mistaking the young man that threw him from the Tower, but the other, the one wielding the dual-blade saberstaff was wearing a mask.

_This is it_. The young, powerful one had to block one end of the saberstaff while Cahal had to block the other. _Can't wait for another_. He reached out and whipped some of the smaller rubble about, tripping the young man that threw him out of the tower, and Cahal pulled around the saberstaff from his end. The end result was that three of the four blades carved the young man into several smaller pieces.

But the other wasn't about to let any of it faze him, and struck out with his back turned, which Cahal blocked easily. _Can't let up_. He could already feel Billaba recovering. Letting go of his own weapon with one hand he snatched a hold of the saberstaff's hilt, keeping the blue blade at bay with his orange he grappled with the masked man.

As they twisted and turned Cahal went with the strength of the masked man, and wound up in front of him with the saberstaff horizontal and his orange on top. He looked into the eye-slit of the mask, seeing the man that lay behind, and saw that he knew it too. _ It's over_. Cahal swept his orange blade across, and the masked man leaped into the air and let go of his weapon, flipping over his head. But Cahal simply gripped the handle of the saberstaff, lifted it over his head, and spun it so fast that the glow became a large blue circle. _I can literally feel his lower half disappear_. Suddenly he felt cold.

Gaze flickering between what remained of the two he needed a moment to catch his breath. _ Better to be lucky than good_. Behind him he felt Billaba rising. _But then, the good make their own luck_. He turned, and through a light red haze he saw Depa Billaba get to her feet, the blue beam of the last lightsaber in the room in her hands. "You have no idea what you're doing boy."

"Just trying to figure out what's happening." He felt the sweat start to pop out. _I need a minute_. Ataro was taxing at the most lenient of times.

"You just attacked and killed two of our brothers is what's happening."

_I can actually feel the change, the lack of life_. "He attacked me first."

"You're the one from the Padawan living quarters." Billaba inched closer, trying to appear relaxed. "You really don't know, do you?"

He turned to his side so the orange blade in his right hand was directed at Billaba, and the blue saberstaff vertical behind his back. "I know enough." _ A Jedi's ally is the Force. When calm, at peace, guide you it will. A Jedi, uses the strength for knowledge and defense, never attack_. Yoda teaches all the children the earliest lessons about the nature of a Jedi's relationship with the Force. _ And a good lesson it was, even if I hadn't known it at the time_. His breathing settled. _Calm_.

She smiled contemptuously. "You know nothing." She brought the blue blade up and stepped forward. "And if you listen to what that old fool once taught us, you will fall like the rest."

_Let's find out_. "I'm waiting."

She came to a stop with their blades almost touching. "You're as confident as he is. Mace. He had high hopes for you. Too bad." She whipped her blade and with a _crack_ it crashed against Cahal's orange above his head, and faster than the eyes of a normal being could see it had _cracked_ again, this time blocked before it was to cut his right knee, leaving only an echo of light before it _cracked_ a third time, parried as Cahal spun, whirling the saberstaff over his head. A fourth _crack_, Billaba parried his orange as he came about. A fifth _crack_, low between them as Cahal stepped back. A sixth _crack_ as Billaba stepped forward, Cahal catching her blade between two of his, pushing them high and with the Force he shot forward, the sole of his right foot crashing into her belly and sending her to the floor.

Cahal watched on, letting half of the saberstaff die out and getting into a classic dual-blade Jar'kai ready stance as Billaba got back to her feet, a little more cautious now.

_A Sith draws his power through the Force from his emotions; fear, anger, jealousy, hate_. "Mace would be ashamed of you."

"Me?" She said, smiling as she stepped forward, bringing her blade up once more in her Juyo fashion. "I was his star pupil. You were nothing more than Sifo Dyas' leftovers. A child he took pity on." And she struck with a _crack_.

On the matter of Vaapad, it's greatest weakness lies in the nature of the artform itself.

Vaapad, like each and every other form of Jedi combat is built around a mentality, a spiritual aspect and certain merging of the Force-user and the Force itself.

The way you totally become one with the Force in Shii-cho. The Force-enhanced manoeuvres and commitment to attack of Ataro. The utter calmness of Soresu. The grace and elegance of Makashi. The power and determination of Shien and Djem-so. And the total emotional insanity of Juyo.

Vaapad, when it's most complete form is achieved makes it's user an open conduit of the Force. Everything one's enemy throws at a Master of Vaapad gets sucked into the user, and thrown back out at their opponent. All one's effort and focus is put into maintaining this conduit, and subsequently the ultimate form of Vaapad is a style of swordplay and Force knowledge that causes one singe outcome: the master uses their opponent as a battery to destroy him with the insane attacking sequences of Juyo.

That being the case, there has only ever been one true master of this lightsaber technique: Mace Windu, who created it as an answer to combat and handle the darkness within himself. And this is the case because of the form's final requirement, one that practically goes against everything the Jedi Order teaches it's students: to successfully achieve a Master's level at Vaapad, one must completely immerse oneself in the fight. One must allow oneself to enjoy the fight, the thrill of combat, whether successful or not.

No other Jedi has been known to Master it, though Sora Bulq came close, it was Depa Billaba who was once recognised as being the most likely candidate to follow in her one-time Master's footsteps.

_Crack_, _crack_, _crack_, _crack_, _crack_, _crack_, _crack_. Cahal Meyrick and Depa Billaba darted and swept all around each other, seemingly across the entire floor of the giant hallway in the center of the Jedi Temple. They moved so fast they were barely a blur in the space between the fading moments of light leftover whenever their lightsabers crashed together.

_Crack_, _crack_. Cahal was taught the lessons of Vaapad from Mace Windu, just as Depa Billaba had been. _Vaapad works much the same as an electrical current, taking all that your opponent throws at you and sending it back at them._ So Cahal chose to sit back, and allow Billaba the attack, purposefully not attacking her and thus preventing the circuit from completing, forcing all her power to come from within herself.

_Crack_, _crack_, _crack_. It did not make her less dangerous though, Cahal ducking and weaving, still forcing himself to move faster and faster to hold his own. He was no master of Vaapad either; though Master Windu was impressed with the speed he achieved in spite of his shortcomings in the fluidity of the form itself. Though he loved the fight he was never actually able to surrender to it, to something other than himself. _ It just feels wrong_. Whether about Vaapad, or something else, he hadn't yet been able to work out. "And until you do, you will never successfully master Juyo." His Master had informed him in the midst of a lesson about meant to make him see the similarities between all the forms, the trueness of oneself when immersed in the Force. _ And yet it doesn't stop me from comprehending the interconnectivity of the Force within all things_.

_Crack_, _crack... Crack... Crack-crack, crack_... The only warning he got was a slight brush of the Force, but it was enough for him to be ready when Billaba over-committed, and lunged. It was a slight gap that Cahal had opened up, her blade driving for his chest; a move that would have killed most Jedi. But Cahal used the Force to shift himself to the left as he brought his blue lightsaber across, pushing Billaba's to the side until it crashed against the orange, his grip reversed, locking her lightasber as his finger triggered the second blade of the saberstaff.

Depa Billaba had no time to react, never mind to counter as the second blade of the saberstaff severed her from right shoulder to left hip. Cahal hit the ground in the midst of a a crumbling of body parts. All the plasma gone from sight, the debris of the battle the only sign that they were ever there.

Cahal leaned back, breathing hard as sweat poured down him, looking down he saw blood trickle down his side as he let go _ I won't be able to keep this up_. As the Force left him he started to feel the ache in his muscles, and he followed the blood to see the wound in his side had broken open. After a few precious moments he couldn't help it. His eyes swept over the shredded corpses, all that remained of his brothers and sister. _My family_.


	5. Anguish of the Crucible

"Why when I talk about belief do you instantly think I'm talking about God?" - Derrial Book

_19 BBY, Month 5, 0022 Hours Centaxday – Jedi Temple, Coruscant._

_No_. He cried as the Force reaffirmed to him what was destined to happen this day.

_What?_ He heard Miyuki's thoughts as she slid to a stop a few steps ahead of him.

_I've seen this_. He told her as she turned to meet his eyes. _All of this. Everything._ Though not strictly true, he had enough experience to comprehend the meanings of the dreams, the visions, to determine the shape of things to come.

_Master_, Miyuki returned to him, _it doesn't take one with the foresight to see how this day will end._

_No, it doesn't_. But knowing that didn't stop him from dropping, from sitting down precisely where he stood. _I can't do it. It's too much._ He closed his eyes, and sought the calmness, the emptiness, the peace. After so many years, it should have enveloped him in an instant, but with all that had happened this day, and with the knowledge that it would, it took him a few moments. And he couldn't shake the image from his mind.

_Master, what are you doing?_

_I need to know what to do._ But that was a lie. Trained as he had been for so many years, he knew what he had to do, the Force told him precisely what he had to do. But in his mind he saw every prophetic dream he had had, he saw the all-seeing eye hovering over the pyramid, blinded while the foundations crack. He saw every vision the Force had thrust upon him, he saw the bodies, the burnt corpses, the bloodied face of a young Jedi, her staring, lifeless eyes glinting in the firelight.

In his memory he saw the broken bodies and charred corpses half buried in the rubble that once was the core of the Jedi might in the galaxy. Now nothing but a ruin. _It's too much, and yet..._ He could feel the traitor, taking his time as he ascended through the core of the Ziggurat, so close. _I have to at least try._ He could feel Cin Drallig, so far from them both. He opened his eyes, and found Miyuki watching him, waiting. _We are who we choose to be._

_All that can be asked of us is that we try._ It wasn't just a thought, a feeling, it was Mace Windu, speaking from Miyuki's memory, her memory of him. _We don't have to win. All we have to do is fight._

_Always proactive, was Master Windu. Like someone I know._ _That doesn't necessarily mean he was right._

_How about this Master Cahal._ Miyuki knelt beside him. _Since at the end of the day the only person we need to live with is ourselves, what is it _you_ feel you need to do?_

Looking at her like that, he couldn't help but laugh, and the surprise he felt emanate from the group of Padawans only enhanced it. _Little Miyuki, so wise beyond your years_.

_You only have yourself to blame, Master._

He rose to his knee and pulled her into a hug. He could feel the surprise in her, the unsure hesitation. But she did return it. _How many times have I done this? Once? Twice?_

_It doesn't matter, Master_.

He pulled back so that he looked her in the eyes, then touching her face he sent no words, only emotion, and through their bond she felt it. No normal person could truly comprehend exactly what he did, not even many Jedi understood that their telepathic links could be used in such a fashion. They were Jedi, meant to purge emotions of the self, and here Cahal was giving his freely. Miyuki; his student, his little sister.

But of course after a moment Miyuki froze, her eyes widening in understanding. _You're going to die, aren't you?_

_If that is my fate_. And he rose, looking from Miyuki to the others, most of whom had only grown increasingly anxious as the seconds in the delay slipped by. "Come on." And without another word he took off, chasing after the traitor.

Miyuki and the others followed closely as he raced through the broken corridors, after all, where else were they to go? The Padawans had given up hope before he had arrived for them, he had felt it. And so now they followed him, even as he felt their fear rise when they realised where that was.

There was no doubt, no fear, no worry as Cahal followed the trail of the Dark Side up through the Temple. It wasn't hard to follow, every corridor showed the signs of the heaviest, most reckless fights he had ever seen. Yet strangely, there were fewer dead than everywhere else he had been that day.

Even though that being the case, there was no mistaking the dark shadow that clung to the walls of every room, every corridor, every broken wall and collapsed roof. One even barely trained to feel the Force would be able to follow such a trail. Without any of the white troops to bar their path, they reached the doors to the highest room at the center of the Temple, the very peak of the Ziggurat. And the dark force eating away at the Jedi was just on the other side.

_Are you sure about this Master?_

_More than anything else._ The image was still there, just beyond his vision. Like always.

_But what about Master Drallig?_ He smiled, feeling only concern coming from his apprentice.

But he also could feel the Battlemaster, working his way around the Temple, nowhere near to them. And the traitor wasn't the only person beyond the doors in front of him. _When I engage him, I shall rely on you to get the others to the Troll._

He did not even await her response before he stepped forward, the doors opening to reveal the Jedi Council Chamber enshrouded by shadow. The darkness only lasted for a moment though, as light spilled onto the floor of the chamber a very distinctive bright scarlet glow burst into existence in the center of the room, mixing with the darkness to throw a blood-red light across everything.

_Skywalker_. There was only a handful of Jedi with that particular colour, only two of which were on Coruscant when it had begun. The other; Agen Kolar, was already dead. _And he was a greater Jedi, and better man than Anakin Skywalker could have ever been_.

_Here and now Master_. He heard from Miyuki, feeling worry and concern slipping toward him through the Force. With the words he moved his eyes to the man awaiting him, standing as motionless as the three small bodies at his feet. _Man is a strong term._

Anakin Skywalker, the most famed Jedi of recent years had always seemed less than he should have been. Standing a bit shorter than Cahal he always tried to full-fill people's expectations of him, taking the spotlight with a fist and never letting go, thrusting his chest out and doing everything he could to keep people's attention. No more.

Standing facing a huddled group of frightened children with his hood up and head tilted down his eyes never left Cahal. He had always been strong, but now he had a quiet sureness about himself. Anakin held his attention without any of his old style.

_But it's still him_. He could feel it; both in the Force and the way Anakin looked at him. In many ways he seemed right, proper. _Well, so be it_. Without ever taking his eyes from Anakin he spoke to the others the same way he did to Miyuki. _Get out!_ The children wasted no time, all of them slipping in their hurry to get away from Skywalker.

Then he felt Anakin channel a small amount of the Force, so tiny he almost missed it. _Chssh-qwlk!_ And yet, he still couldn't do anything, he never had a chance. And he certainly didn't want to look at what remained of the last child in the line. The one who hadn't made it through the door in time. And Anakin smiled.

_You're a psychopath._ Anakin was his friend, they had known each other ever since Qui-gon Jinn had brought him to the Jedi Temple as a boy. Anakin was a few years younger and as such was more of a younger brother to himself, Agen and Xoren. _Looking back on it, the way he looked up at us, the way he strove to be like us, I can honestly say that this doesn't truly surprise me. And I don't think we helped as much as we could have_. Not that they were not inclusive, or even mean in any real way. But Anakin was the younger by quite a way, and he had never truly liked the way things were done in the Temple. _And his failures hurt him more than they should have. If he hit a wall he'd slam his head against it until it gave way, willing the wall to not be there._

_I have never forgotten the shock he felt when you informed him of your ascension to Mastery before he had reached Jedi Knight_.

_Leave Miyuki. Now_.

_But Master-_

_I'm trusting you. Now go_. Not a moment more passed before he felt Miyuki leave, hurrying away from the door with the rest falling in behind her, heading toward Master Drallig. _Not too far now_.

"They will not survive." Anakin said, turning toward him. "None of you will."

"We'll see."

"This has been generations in preparation." Even his voice was quiet, strong. _Ice cold_. "My Master has studied this from every conceivable angle."

"The best plan only lasts until the first shot is fired." And yet, he could not help but feel a truth to what Anakin was saying, his words conveying a certain, inevitability.

An he could not push away his unease. But not about Anakin, or even the feeling of death that covered everything. _ Focus on the now. Later won't matter if you don't make it there_. "You never were deserving, not really."

"Coming from the man who never experienced the Trails for Knighthood."

Anakin shrugged. "Over-rated. Like many of the Jedi who passed them."

"They were your brothers and sisters Anakin." The mingling of anger and melancholy was definitely new to him.

"That's interesting, something a Jedi is not supposed to do."

"What feel?" Cahal said as he stepped forward to his old friend, his younger brother. "Sadness? Pity? Abject Horror?"

"No, just emotion." Anakin replied, Cahal actually managing to feel his icy calm as they began to circle each other. "Yoda and Windu talk about denying and defeating things like anger and hate. Have you ever felt them, their power?"

"You think I haven't?"

"I know you have. That's why I want you with me."

_Well, I can't say I'm shocked_. He felt the power emanating from the younger man, and it was overwhelming. "And why would I ever do that?"

"Because we're the same. Agen and Xoren wouldn't get it, Obi-wan and Windu could never hope to understand. None of them remember what it was like to have a life outside of the Temple, a family."

"I wouldn't exactly call scavenging the Southern Underground as 'a life outside the Temple'." He replied calmly, spotting the spare lightsaber in Anakin's second hand. _This will be tough_. His eyes moved back to Anakin's. _But I knew that already_.

"None of them got held back, pushed to the side at every turn, told to slow down when he had performed something that should have been considered miraculous."

"I fail to see anything miraculous about this."

"We completely rewrote the Jedi's knowledge on one's connection to the Force, pushed the boundaries on how to utilise it; and were told we were foolish when we tried to save those we considered friends. We're like brothers, and we have a chance to destroy all the corruption in the galaxy. We _are_ the same, I know you can feel it too. Join me now brother, and we can fix it all."

His words had a power, a weight. And, he had to admit, a certain attractiveness to them. _I've felt that before_. And a new uneasiness brushed through him, conflicting with the that ever-present image. He wanted to help Anakin, he wanted to fix all the problems with the galaxy. _But not as much as I don't_. He stopped circling Anakin and took a breath. The more he focused on it, the clearer things became. _It's makes a nice change from the last few years_.

The thing was though, he was right. Not about the others not being able to understand, this was all exactly where Agen or even Mace could have ended up without proper guidance. Even he himself had he not taken care. _Or without Miyuki, sweet, little Miyuki_. She kept him on the path, she kept him sane, and focused his vision. _More than she would ever know, more than I had ever realised_. Anakin was found and brought in at nine, Cahal at six. Both of them were orphans and had overcome that stigma over the years.

_But Miyuki never could, she never had that chance_. On one of his earlier assignments as a fresh Jedi Knight he had come across a tiny, underfed child in the Outer Rim mines. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that she was something that the majority of the galaxy felt was an abomination; a half-breed. Even in the Temple amongst the other pupils she was looked down upon for the longest time. It was only because of who he was to Sifo Dyas and Windu, even the great and powerful Yoda was conflicted between his idealism and the Jedi traditions. _And she could have been one of the strongest of us all. Says something for tradition_.

Yes he had taken pity on her, but it was more than that. _ I had felt our similarities from the first, I suppose that was why I was so insistent_. Relaxed, his mind moved back to the now, to what Anakin was saying, to what he was being asked to do. And he couldn't help but to laugh at the absurdity. He could feel it throw Anakin off.

"Yes Anakin, we are the same, as much the same as we are different. To hear you talking about the ways in which we are similar, and you are killing others for the same differences in us, well, I still find only pity for you. You know far too little to have a true, lasting impact on the galaxy."

"Is that so?"

"It is. The Dark Lord does not share power. If he did, Dooku would still live. As would his own Master, and his Master before him. Power does not set you free, it weighs you down. Never content to discover and push what you can do with what you have it is the ambition that drives you. It grabs you and holds onto you because the search for power is all you have."

He felt Anakin's rage build, and he turned his eyes on him. Looking through the Force he saw that great storm that Anakin had always been, always strong, but now so black that it practically covered the entire room, whipping around so furiously that it was a wonder the whole Chamber wasn't torn loose from the Tower. But what really surprised him was that it seemed like the Force itself bent inward toward Anakin, as though the universe itself was flowing into him, pushing him onward.

"You're going to make me kill you, aren't you?" Anakin said, somehow sounding disappointed and excited at the same time.

"I make you do nothing. I never have."

"You pushed me on!" Anakin spat. "You and Agen and Xoren, always looking down on me from above, always urging me to show them what I was capable of! Always daring me to go bigger! Even Serra never let me forget that she was Drallig's favourite!"

Suddenly, the darkness dissipated from his mind, and the clarity calmed him. Calmed, and hurt. "I'm sorry Anakin. But no."

"You're 'sorry'?"

"I am. Agen and Xoren, Obi-wan, Mace, Serra and Miyuki. They are my family. Not just the only family I have ever known, but a family I would do anything for. We grew, bled and lived, and died together. Betraying them is something I could never find it in myself to do. And I'm not even going to talk about all of... this." He gestured with his lightsaber at the corpses of the three children that lay between them. "There are no words to describe that. And it's not exactly a good way to get anyone on your side."

"They are creatures of destruction and heresy, nothing more."

"They were children!"

"And now they won't be a threat when they grow up." Somehow, regardless of everything Anakin had become, of all that he had said, and of some of the particulars of how Mace Windu had trained him, he found that he still didn't hate Anakin. He could never hate Anakin. "You want to kill me, don't you?" _Several times, yes_. "You feel that? That's anger."

_I know_. "You are a fool Anakin Skywalker, and you understand nothing." _So it has come to pass that the most powerful Jedi in the history of the Order is reduced to the plaything of the Dark Lord Sidious_.

"Disrespect me at your peril, my brother."

"Respect is a fluid thing. Lost as quickly as it was gained." He saw the disappointment, and the anger behind Anakin's eyes as the younger man took a small step forward, into his ready stance and igniting his second lightsaber, a Padawan blade.

Oddly, Cahal felt no regret coming from his old friend. "This is the end for you, and the Jedi." _I know_.

Cahal ignited his lightsaber the moment Anakin lunged at him, the Force whipping around them both as Anakin drove him back, his orange blade catching the powerful red and blue strikes with ease. _After all this time, he still has so much to learn_. Anakin might have been famous as one of the greatest Jedi warriors of recent times, and he was the stronger by quite a way, but he only knew one way to fight. _Charge in, and batter your enemy into submission or defeat_. It was the nature of Djem-so to funnel everything you had into overwhelming your opponent as quickly and completely as possible.

But in the years since the onset of the Clone Wars, Cahal had become a master of Ataro. He didn't consider himself one, though that in itself is considered a Jedi trait; but he knew he learned fast and always kept his head in the fight.

_Anakin however has none of that_. And so Cahal Meyrick was content to fall back in the wake of heavy raw power of Anakin Skywalker, wielding two blades as fast as he could and still hitting only air three out of five strikes.

Cahal stepped behind the chair of Mace Windu, darting down and under the blue blade and bringing up his own to catch the red, deflecting and dragging it around to his right to catch the blue before it was to strike his hip. Using the might of Anakin's strength Cahal guided the three blades, locked together as they stepped across; slicing Mace Windu's seat into almost a dozen pieces.

_He's as powerful as ever_. It was with seemingly little effort that Anakin threw the orange blade up, Cahal literally feeling the Force whip around him as he was pushed back almost into the window. Anakin didn't let up though and struck immediately, Cahal dropping and rolling to avoid twin strikes which instead of carving him to pieces cut through the window and burned scorch marks into the wall.

He saw it coming as he flipped from the floor to his feet, swinging his blade out to cut the object in half and a small amount of effort to deflect the pieces to either side of him. He never had a chance to see the two halves of the corpse turn to a red cloud as they slammed into the wall because Anakin was on him in less than a moment; the red and blue blades flashing all around him, striving for all they were worth to penetrate his orange shell as the Force cracked around them.

Cahal felt the Force pulling at him, tugging his movements this way and that, ever so slightly trying to shift him into making a mistake. _ This isn't normal, it has to be Anakin using the Force to manipulate what is_. But try as Anakin might, it wasn't enough. Even with the power he was putting into his swings Cahal was still too fast, too precise in his movements, never truly getting within Anakin's reach no matter the pressure.

And yet, the Force was still tugging at him. _ This isn't right. I'm here, I clearly have the upper hand, yet somehow, this is wrong_. Anakin kept the pressure up, trying in vain to increase his speed and shimmy Cahal into a corner.

_But I know. I've seen how it plays out_. From somewhere, somehow, the Force answered him, _And with that Foresight, just how much has changed? How much has already played out just as you saw?_

The answer was easy. _Not enough. Too much_. And hard, Cahal realised. A lot was different, and yet, all the major pieces seemed to be the same. And in that moment, as Anakin piled on the power, seeming to strain to get the better of him, Cahal discovered he had to know, needed.

The Force whipped around them like a tornado, shooting out in lightening bolts across the room as their energies clashed. _He truly is overwhelming_. Their energies exploded and blew them both back across the room from each other.

Cahal just managed to catch his feet, and he looked up to see Anakin had already recovered and his blue lightsaber having shorted out from the explosion of energy. Cahal watched Anakin dispense with it as the energies circling him got sucked into the young man, his now spare hand darkening as it rose toward him. Looking through the Force it was as though darkness itself shot out of Anakin's outstretched hand, reality itself bending in on the ball of dark energy as it shot toward him. Cahal didn't know what a normal person would have saw had they looked on right then, but he saw what Anakin had done, and had only one possible answer; he raised his right hand to prepare himself, and when the ball of dark energy met his hand he manipulated the Force like an artist, creating his masterpiece.

He caught the dark energy in the palm of his hand – and caught is a strong word – opened a window to the Force, using all his knowledge and more to send it back to the realm it was brought from. But Anakin's power was greater than anything he had ever fought. Lightening flared and left huge scorch marks above ad below where their energies clashed and fought.

_This is insane!_ Was all Cahal was thinking as he looked at Anakin, trying harder than he could ever remember to retain his focus. _He's pushing for everything_. And he was. He could see the sweat on Anakin's face as the younger man tried to hold his assault together, the strain in the way he held himself in trying to prevent what Cahal was trying without great success to accomplish. _He's never needed to know another way to beat his opponents._

It was then that he saw the end. Cahal took the energies clashing at his fingertips and folded them back in on themselves. He twisted and ripped at the energies, pushed and threw them away where they crashed into the ceiling above them, causing the entire room to tremble and fissure; a massive crack that ran the length of the chamber as dust rained down on them both.

When the structure of the chamber stopped groaning Cahal was breathing hard, his right arm was shaking, and with the strain of combating and absorbing the raw power thrown at him he had to focus to maintain his control. But aside from a light sweat he could see on Anakin, the younger man was apparently still in top fitness. _How is he not tiring?_ But the confusion in the younger man's eyes brought a small smile to Cahal's lips. "Tutaminis."

"You never could beat me Anakin."

"Change is inevitable."

Anakin was right, and yet, the Force was whispering to Cahal, showing him the way. This fight was over. "And the man who ignores the past is destined to fall to it." Cahal prepared his move.

"SHUT UP!" Anakin bellowed, the floor cracking at his feet as he launched himself forward, stepping only once in the millisecond it took for him to cross the floor and strike.

Cahal avoided Anakin's first strike, deflect the second as he stepped to the side, avoided the third and forth as he struck twice, keeping Anakin in place for the chair that came flying across the room even faster than Anakin had to slam into his fallen friend square in the chest, sending him crashing into and shattering the window before disappearing outside.

Taking a few deep breaths Cahal stepped up to the window, allowing his orange blade to shrink away as he looked out to see the the scarlet glow of Anakin's blade do the same when the man dropped softly to the ground. Even at that distance, Cahal met Anakin's eyes, felt the rage, and the pain hidden behind. _ The more things change the more they stay the same_. He turned from Anakin and looked at the dead younglings, two of them with small flames from his and Anakin's battle licking their clothes.

But he had no time for them, the unease was still present, the Force using it to call him away, to somewhere else in the Temple. And he knew, wholly and totally that that was where he was meant to be. And so he left. The dead younglings would have the same mourning and honoured burial as every other Jedi that was found in the Temple this day. He didn't look back on the Jedi Council Chamber as he stepped by the broken child's body at the door; the broken floor and scorched roof, the destroyed seat of the First Speaker, and the missing chair of his old friend.

He didn't hurry, nor second-guess himself. So he calmed himself, and did what he could to steady himself and realign his power. Force-tiredness was a very different beast to physical exhaustion. And yet he found the conflict within him interesting; the desire to hurry fighting against the innate trust and belief instilled in him to follow how and where the Force led.

_He has become almost the perfect Sith Warrior, all anger, rage, and hate, and that feeding his enormous strength_. But now wasn't the time for thoughts of Anakin. He could feel the fading light of the Troll. Jedi Master Cin Drallig was still alive, but Cahal could feel that his strength too, like his own had been, was fading. Being stripped away by the darkness that surrounded everything, consumed by it.

But that wasn't where the Force was leading him, nor was it where he wanted to be. No, it was leading him away a little. It wasn't wrong, he knew he needed to be somewhere, but the Troll wasn't it. In fact, he suddenly had the sinking feeling that he would never reach the old Battlemaster while he was alive. And that feeling was growing within him. So he picked up the pace, and followed the Force, the unease growing as he knew there was somewhere he needed to be, something he needed to see, needed to do. _Need_.

He saw it just before he entered the room, so he knew he had little time. He charged into the Third Hanger Deck, blasterfire covering almost ever corner of the room. But his target was their's; just off-center in the room was five lightsabers doing everything they could to hold back the bright wall of death that was forever strengthening and closing in on them, and only the two green ones belonged to someone over then age of eleven.

Balls of energy flew every way from the group of Jedi as he raced across the room, weaving through blasterfire and soldiers in an effort to get there. _There's too many, I'll never make it_. Two Padawan blues fell and blinked out one after the other. Cahal sped up, the Force leading him through the battlefield, his lightsaber an orange blur all around him. He saw it all happening, he had no time, listening to the Force as it lead him.

The last blue light fell, leaving the green blades alone and sweeping in all directions as they abandoned their position. Cahal was already moving in their direction as he saw the Force bend in toward the Jedi; an artillery piece taking aim from above.

Cahal darted through a line of soldiers so fast they all dropped to the floor as one; he launched himself into the air, whipping his lightsaber across to deflect the heavy laser down where it crashed into the floor, sending soldiers and rubble flying and crashing in all directions. Cahal spun in the air and behind the Jedi below him he slashed again, causing twin explosions as his blade sliced through a pair of rocket propelled grenades.

The force of the explosions threw him down where he crashed into the floor with a huge _crunch_, knocking the air out of him. And in a way no normal person can understand; literally feeling the spiderweb beneath him as it cracked into existence across the floor, and using the Force to mold the dust that billowed up into a cloak that surrounded both of them.

Cahal turned a his head instantly to see the outline of the back of Serra Keto; a short pixie shaped woman who was the one-time ace apprentice of Cin Drallig. She was hovering in the air, puling the Force into a ball in front of her twin green blades. With an outward gesture the Force shot away from her in a giant ball, rippling through the dust cloud to crash into a far wall.

The soldiers waited seemingly forever as they set their perimeter, waiting for the dust to disperse and reveal the two Jedi. Three soldiers were a little braver and stepped right up to the edge of the cloud as it finally cleared, revealing only an abandoned lightsaber on the floor.

"They're gone sir!" one of them said.

"Fan out!" The commander shouted to everyone, clear-cut, strong and sure. "Search for any possible exit! This is Commander Jacobs. Two Jedi have escaped the Hanger Deck Three."

Three floors below in the corner of a supply room Cahal stopped, and with his arm around her waist he helped a struggling, smiling Serra down to the floor. "I feel like we've been here before."

"Yeah." was all he could manage as hey hit the floor.

"Great." She groaned. Trying, and failing to move. "Now I know it's bad." Somehow, he could still feel her happiness at this moment. The way her emotions conflicted and fought within her somehow bringing him small comfort that they mirrored his own. _ This is what you get. Fight for the Force, help people at every turn, and at the end of it all..._

"It's alright." he said softly as he held her, shaking as she tried to resist. "We'll just rest here for a minute." The Temple began to quake and shudder once more, as he felt Cin Drallig begin to engage Skywalker. _For the last time_.

"I'm- I'm dying Cahal." He could hear the pain in her voice, the fear. _She's terrified_. He ran his hand down her back, over a dozen burn-swells rippling across her skin beneath her now shredded clothing.. And yet, what hurt most of all; he knew that this was the way it was meant to be. _This is what was in it for us? Fear, pain, and death?_

He felt himself starting to shake, his eyes getting watery. "I'm sorry." He said, holding her close. _About far more than this_. He felt her hand grab his arm. "I... I guess I just couldn't..."

"Cahal?" He heard Serra whisper in his ear.

"Yeah?" _I know_.

"Would you- please stop lying to me now?" _I never lied to myself, I just couldn't bring myself to..._ Instead, for an answer Cahal moved his head until it touched her's, leaving it there for a few moments, meeting her eyes as they stared into him. He closed his eyes and slowly, gently he lowered his lips against hers, Serra responding just as softly.

The Jedi Order had rules against such relationships; and though looked down upon by the many traditionalists it is not technically forbidden for a – or two – Jedi to share an intimate relationship. A few hundred years ago the Order had tried to outlaw it completely but were met with a possible rift in the Order, so it became Yoda's position to allow such relationships as long as they did not interfere with one's duties. But that does not mean there isn't a sort of stigma that goes with being discovered, making it even more difficult for two within the order to share such a deep connection.

When he pulls back Serra almost blurts out, "I'm sorry."

"No, shh." Cahal hurried just a little, struggling to say anything himself as he felt her life trickling away. _ Right through my hands_. "It's my fault okay. It's not as though you never... It's mine." Even with his eyes open he could barely see her, though he wasn't sure if that made it more or less painful.

"I'm scared Cahal." She trembled in his arms, her skin going pearl white.

"I know. I know." _What else can I say?_ He knew what she wanted, what she needed, but he found himself shaking as he fought to even get that little something out of his mouth coherently.

"Please Cahal," She spoke so softly he almost didn't hear her, clinging onto him with everything she had, and it still somehow felt faint to him, fragile. _She's almost gone._ "I don't want to be alone." He shut his eyes, and let the pain wash over him._ And I can't do a thing_.

"You won't be." He found himself saying. "You'll be with the rest of us, back in the Force, returning to that place with no physical bounds." As her grip on him slackened, her breathing easing a little, he found himself wondering, almost comfortingly, if what he was saying was even remotely true. _It doesn't matter if it isn't_. "The world of dreams that you've been to thousands of times before, and will be again with all the rest of life that has passed on as you wait to be reborn again."

"A very old belief, Cahal Meyrick." She whispered, her eyes barely focusing. "But then, you always were drawn to the whimsical." She spoke with her natural, fond smile. _ How does she always find time for that?_

Still, somehow he could never quite form the right words around the lump in his throat. _Please, not this_. He didn't want her to leave, he wanted her to stay, to live. His whole world had gone to hell around him and right then practically none of it mattered, he just wanted Serra to stay, that feeling compounded as he felt her life slowly drift away. _But that is only greed_. And Jedi were taught to let go of such things, to not cling to the world around them.

And so that was what Cahal Meyrick meant to do, holding her in his arms until her light faded to the last, finding nothing to say himself. _ Too much, there's too much. It's too much. How could I ever say enough now?_

But Serra saved him the trouble, as she had so many times. With what must have been the last of her strength she breathed, "I'll see you in another life Cahal. But not again in this one." And her chest fell for the final time.

_She's gone_. And he felt only worse. He just leaned back against the wall, still holding Serra in his arms as the tears he'd held in all day long finally began to drip free. He stayed there for he didn't know how long. The shaking and trembling of the Temple died, and in the distance he felt the life force of Serra's one-time mentor fade to nothing in the distance. And he finally found the right words to tell her.


End file.
